Vanguard
by metaldragon868
Summary: In an incident with the Vex, the Vanguard of the City are sent back in time to a time before the Golden Age and the Collapse. Seeing an incredible opportunity, they decide that staying is the best choice, and work to prepare humanity for the coming war from the shadows. But in the land of gods and magic, their arrival heralds great change. For they are god-slayers and fatebreakers.
1. Chapter 1: Rupture

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 **Vanguard**

 **Chapter 1**

 **Rupture**

 _A/n:_

 _Alright, well this is probably going to be the strangest fic I write for a time. Also, maybe the most fun._

 _When I was a kid, I read Percy Jackson and the Olympians, thought it was a the shit._

 _Then the first four ended, and I thought it was done._

 _Come back a year ago, turns out, ha ha, it's not_

 _Somehow_

 _And with all of the high school and college now in my brain, it doesn't make as much sense as it did before._

 _So after reading a bunch of PJO fics, I wonder "What would happen if Sci Fi came to punch this fantasy in balls"_

 _Metaphorically speaking._

 _And what better choice to pick than one of my favorite groups of space-god-killing immortals from a fun, if flawed, game known as Destiny?_

 _Because the stars of the show are going to be the breaking things in half._

 _But I'd also like to thank NothingExistance, or Trav because that in no way shape or form rolls off the tongue, for his help._

 _He's a lot more up to date with this PJO stuff, so he's been my resident advisor/expert with that._

 _Destiny, though?_

 _That I am quite familiar with._

* * *

In an average café in central Philadelphia, an unassuming looking man with brown hair and brown eyes in his mid to late 30's wearing a brown trench coat over a white shirt and khakis sits down at one of the outdoor tables. The unassuming man in the average café soon orders a typical black coffee, one he sips absentmindedly.

It is then that the unassuming man in the average café drinking a typical drink pulls out a decidedly extraordinary device. A sleek diamond-shaped object with a small spike coming out of each face, approximately the size of his hand. Looking at it for a moment, he places the object down in the center of the table, the spikes acting as legs to hold it up straight. No sooner is it placed than does the man hear a small humming sound emit from it.

Confident that it has worked, the man pulls out a newspaper and goes back to sipping his coffee.

Moments later, two other individuals, a man and a woman, both of African descent and in their mid to late 30s, walked up to the café and sat down at the table with the unassuming man. The man was tall and of a lean shape, wearing dark jeans, a light grey shirt, and a black leather jacket overtop, and having a clean shaven head. The woman also had a shaved head, leaving only a slim trim of dark black hair on her head, was shorter than the man but still just over 6 ft tall, and wore light tan pants, a dark purple shirt, and a light grey high collar long coat over it.

Taking a moment to look around, the African male turns back to the white male and asks, "Cayde, are you sure this is the best place to discuss this?"

"Relax," The now named Cayde nonchalantly responds, not even looking up from his newspaper, "Hiding in plain sight is the best disguise, after all."

"But it's rather…open…to have a discussion of this nature." He countered.

"Zavala," Cayde began, looking up at the man in question, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing."

"Besides, this little doohickey will keep our actual conversation nice and private." Cayde said as he sat up and flicked the device he had put on the table. "We can talk freely, and all anyone else will hear is something boring, like how financing your house is going or something."

Zavala gave the woman to his side a skeptical look, silently asking for her input on the matter.

"It's sound technology, Zavala. I've used it several times, as have my Hidden." She answers.

"Very well, carry on, Cayde." Zavala all but sighs.

"Great!" Cayde smiles, dropping the newspaper on the table and clapping his hands together.

"Ok, so as you know, the year right now is apparently 1990 A.D., whatever that meant." He began excitedly.

"Well, I found out what that means in terms of how it relates to us. See, we're back in the past, obviously, but from what I can tell, we're around a millennia or so in the past, before the golden age." He explained.

"Before the golden age?" the woman questioned, "How far before?"

"Well, not that far. Well, not for us. Probably a century at the most." He answered.

"While we don't have a fantastic idea of when the Golden age happened, and a terrible idea of what came before, the documents and files that we've seen about the first meeting show technology that is within reach of humanity right now, or at the very least within the century." He continued

"I've also discovered some rather interesting things about 'present' earth, but why don't you tell us what you found about getting us back home, Ikora?" Cayde suggested.

"Very well," Ikora acknowledged.

"…I am no further along in figuring out how to get us back to our own timeline." She answered.

"But can't you just use the stuff in the Vault of Glass to send us back?" Cayde asked

"That Vex Tech is so far beyond me I don't want to try it. Besides, we know what happens to those who try to delve too deep into the secrets of the Vex." She explained. "The Vex, for some reason, wanted us to be back here. Or at the very least, Atheon did."

"You make it sound like those aren't one in the same." Zavala noted.

"My spies have told me that apparently Atheon is…split…from the rest of the Vex, that he represents a different faction. One that rejects the black heart." She answered.

"Does that mean that it's aligned with the light?" Cayde asked.

"Probably not, but it's possible that Atheon considered doing this a better alternative than the revival of the Black Heart. Why, I couldn't tell you." Ikora disagreed.

"What about Kabr? His relic had a hand in this too, do you think his light interfered with whatever the Vex were trying to do? Influenced it in some way such that we got sent here, to this timeline?" Zavala suggested.

"Well…it's possible." Ikora considered.

"Why here? Why not home, instead of stranded back in the past?" Cayde asked.

"Actually…I think this might have been the best possible outcome." Ikora suggested.

"What?!" Cayde recoiled, bewildered by what she was saying.

"Think about it. We have an incredible chance here. There is no Darkness here yet, we are immortal. The Golden Age hasn't even happened yet. We have a chance to stop the collapse before it even begins." Ikora conspired.

"…you're really serious about this, aren't you?" Cayde said after a stunned moment.

"Of course." She confirmed.

"I'm not sure I like this. It feels like running from the fight where we're needed." Zavala frowned.

"Zavala, we can make the biggest difference here, not in our own timeline. Here we can properly shape and prepare humanity for the coming storm." She tried to convince him.

"How would the Traveler react to us?" Cayde asked.

The other two paused as they considered the question.

"I…I'm not sure…" Ikora admitted.

"It couldn't hurt." Cayde said.

"Agreed." Zavala nodded.

"But, on the note of what you said earlier, Ikora," Cayde began, switching topics, "Regarding there not being any Darkness."

"That's not _exactly_ true."

"What do you mean?" She frowned, not liking the implications of that statement.

"While you two were out scouting mars and Venus, and I did my little recon here, I got some…weird readings." He answered.

"Define 'weird'." Zavala stressed

"Just send us the data." Ikora amended.

"I'll do both." Cayde said as he pulled out a small device made of what appeared to be glass that fit in his hand.

"What I found…" He spoke as he tapped several places on the screen, "Was several signatures that resembled light and darkness, but weaker. Some of it reminded me of Hive magic, but more grounded, instead of being tied to an ascendant realm or their space gods."

"Or…" He said as his device dinged to signify a completed action, "regular magic, as opposed to the fancy space magic we're used to."

"Regular magic?" Ikora said with a skeptically raised brow, pulling her own device out.

"Yeah, it's the best thing I got. Your ghosts can confirm it, but Kaylee agrees with me on it, and I always trust her gut." Cayde confirmed.

"Awe, thanks Cap'n." A disembodied female voice said to Cayde, not that anyone else could hear it.

"Your ghost doesn't have a gut." Ikora said distractedly, looking through the data he gave her. "Neither do you, for that matter."

"And yet somehow, it's still better than yours." Cayde quipped.

"Where did you find this…'magic'?" Zavala asked, trying to focus on the practical meaning of this.

"All over the world. But usually focused in certain areas. I didn't want to get too close to those places just yet, instead try to stay safe and keep my distance, but I _did_ notice some pretty strange phenomenon just walking around." He answered.

"Like?" Zavala said in a tone both interested and annoyed by Cayde's games.

"Like a non-human entity walking around a city without anyone taking notice of it." Cayde answered with a smirk.

"Define non-human." Zavala frowned.

"Well, there's lots of them, but most of them seem to have a human base. For example this one." He said as he sent them another file, this one containing video. "It's some kind of old lady bird person, just walking around naked in the middle of New York City, and nobody takes any notice."

"Maybe it's normal to them?" Ikora suggested.

"Considering that a naked regular human walking around the city drew more attention than her, and the 'magic' coming off her, I'd be willing to bet it's not." Cayde pointed out.

"So maybe this 'magic' is shielding her presence from the humans?" Zavala suggested.

"That's what I figured." Cayde agreed, "What makes this worrying is the fact that many of these resemble mythical monsters known for being enemies of humanity."

"Now, while I don't know whether or not these legends hold any merit," Cayde admitted, "I do find the fact that there are mythical monsters walking around that humans can't even perceive worrying."

"Indeed." Zavala frowned as he looked at the report.

"Maybe it's similar to what you and Zavala are using, Cayde?" Ikora suggested.

"Maybe in effect, but it's not the same thing. These devices I have are applying a camouflage field over us. It looks real, it feels real, and you can't see through it. Enough pressure will burst it, but otherwise it's good enough to trick Oryx." He explained, "This was more like something that affected the minds of the observers, which is why I could see through it."

"Was it because you don't have an organic brain or because of your light?" Ikora asked.

"I…actually don't know." Cayde realized, "Maybe both?"

"It didn't take any violent or aggressive action, correct?" Zavala asked.

"No, just seemed to be moving somewhere with a particular purpose." He answered.

"Then in that case, I think it would be best to put that issue aside for the moment. We'll keep an eye on it, but it won't be a priority." Zavala said.

"I agree, right now we have a bigger issue to deal with." Ikora said, trying to switch topics

"Alright," Cayde acquiesced, "I just thought I'd bring it up since it seems…weird."

"Understood." Zavala nodded, "Now, how should we…prepare for the coming storm?"

"We have lots of stuff stashed in our ships. Data, weapons, hell, the jump drive alone would catapult these guys centuries into the future." Cayde pointed out. "I vote we give 'em Ikora's"

"Or perhaps we could give them Cayde. An Exo like him would be invaluable." Ikora quipped back with a half-hearted glare.

"Hey." Cayde glared, jabbing his finger towards her, "Not. Cool."

"We shouldn't give humanity too much too soon. We aren't the Traveler, we can't be too obvious about it. Jump drives, cheap space travel, energy weapons and anti-grav technologies would be too much of an obvious jump." Zavala said, ignoring the banter before him

Willing herself to stop arguing with Cayde, Ikora turned to Zavala. "That's not a bad idea. If we can control the rate at which humanity evolves, we can better prepare them for the coming Darkness, and let them make better use of the golden age."

"So…how are we going to give it to them?" Cayde asked the obvious question.

"Could go through the military." Zavala suggested.

"Couldn't that start a war? If one country suddenly get's more advanced tech, the others might get worried." Cayde pointed out.

"Perhaps we should work through a company?" Ikora put forth.

"And maybe focus on less aggressive tech?" Cayde added.

"Like what?" Zavala asked.

"We could start with a medical company, work to expand the human lifespan to what it is in our timeline, bit by bit. That way we slowly build up our credibility until we're ready to implement the real changes." Ikora said.

"And in the meantime, I can work on scouting out this whole 'magic and monsters' thing." Cayde suggested.

"And I'll work on setting up some kind of home base." Zavala added.

"So we're in agreement then?" She asked for clarification, "I'll start up a medical company, Cayde will look into this 'magic', and Zavala will set up our base of operations."

"Sounds good to me." Cayde smiled

"Agreed." Zavala nodded.

"One question though, Ikora." Cayde interjected before they could leave.

"Yes?" She acknowledged.

"What is your first step going to be?"

At this question, Ikora grinned one of her famed grins of cunning she was known for in the Crucible.

"I'm going to cure cancer."

In a dark corner of the underworld, three ancient beings toiled with their task.

They spun and wove the threads of destiny, binding together time and space with needle and yarn. They were the Fates, and they determined everything.

Until today.

For as one sister spun the yarn, one thread appeared from nowhere. Strange, but not too strange, she dismisses it. But then the thread begins to glow. It's glow grows to blinding luminosity as the ball heats up.

Soon she is forced to drop it with a yelp of pain, her hands burning. The other to stop to stare in wonder and horror at what is happening before them.

The single thread replicates and grows, consuming more and more of the ball, soon spiraling out of control like a cancer as the ball grows to monstrous proportions.

Then the threads shoot off to the knitted destinies, infecting them as well. Before long, the bright light has encompassed every active prophecy, destiny, and fate they had. The threads begin to do impossible things, threading into themselves, dividing and replicating, suddenly disappearing in one place, only to re-appear elsewhere.

The Fates can only look on in terror as they realize one thing. They are no longer in control of Destiny.

Nothing is.

"What could do this, sister?" One asks.

"Nothing, it should be impossible." Another answers.

"And yet it is not."

"Then whatever it is, it can only have one name."

"Yes sister, I agree"

"For we are dealing with nothing short of FateBreakers."

 **5 years later…**

"Ah, Zavala, Ikora! Glad you could join me." Cayde greeted excitedly, yet distractedly, his back turned from the screen as he worked on a project.

Rather than the public café used last time, on this occasion they had decided to meet in a far more discreet location.

"Cayde…what are you doing?" Zavala's voice asked.

"Well, I was bored, so I decided to make a house of cards while I waited." Cayde answered, still focused on the task before him.

The man in question was wearing form fitting tan, white, and grey clothes, resembling light armor, all under a black hooded cape covered in red symbols. He stood inside a mostly dark metal room, the light from the screens behind him being the only light source.

"Well, since we're all here now, we can begin the meeting." Zavala said.

"Wait, I'm almost done. Just give me a sec." Cayde stalled, raising his hand to carefully install the last piece of his work.

"Cayde" Zavala warned in an annoyed tone.

"Just let him do it. You know he'll be impossible if we don't let him finish." Ikora's voice admonished.

"Aaaaaaaand….there." Cayde said as he put the cards down ever so carefully

"Tadaa!" He cried sarcastically, spinning around to present his masterpiece, a full house of 52 cards.

But instead of being greeted by flesh and bone, they saw metal and circuitry. For Cayde was not a man, but an Exo, a sentient android built for war, and reborn in the traveler's light. Small Blue lights in place of eyes and a lower jaw separated by a small slit in place of a mouth. His face was a pale blue, save for a grey plate of armor over his forehead with a solitary horn sticking out of it.

And yet, for all his iron, he still managed to be the most expressive of the three.

Cayde looked back at the screens displaying his two comrades, both of whom were giving him unamused glares. Ikora looked much the same, though now wearing purple robes. Being the only human on the team, she had no need for the disguiser. Zavala, on the other hand, did.

His true form had the same basic structure of his disguise, but the coloration was all off. Instead of being a dark skinned man, his skin was a pale blue, while his eyes were bright blue. The thing that stood out about that, though, was the strange ethereal glow about him. His skin seemed to have some sort of energy faintly traveling over it, while his eyes were glowed brightly with power.

He wore heavy plated silver and red armor. The armor plate on his left shoulder was an oversized and curved red piece and on his chest were several painted and engraved medals.

Zavala was an Awoken, a race of humans that had tried to flee the coming darkness during the collapse, and had returned from the edges of the solar system…changed. Apart from some strange powers they had, they were still human, with all the faults and boons.

"…Are you done?" Zavala scowled, almost at the end of his rope, which was exactly what Cayde was trying to accomplish.

Still, Cayde knew when to back off and actually get serious.

"Yeah, I'm done." Cayde replied with a bored tone. With a snap of his fingers the house of cards disappeared in a flash of white, having been transmatted back to his inventory.

"So, how are things on your end?" Cayde asked.

"Right now I've actually made significant ground in the company I started." Ikora announced.

"Oh? What's it called?" He asked.

"The Ishtar Collective." She smirked.

"hmm, good choice." Cayde nodded in appreciation.

"I thought so. Right now, the company is small, but producing promising research. I've been slowly pooling together the most promising and trustworthy people for the company, while feeding them the right hints and pieces at the right time to lead them in the right direction." She explained with that that small self-assured smile of hers.

"I already know what the solution is, I'm just trying to 'show my work', more or less, so it doesn't seem suspicious. In a year we should have our first prototype ready for initial trials."

"Didn't they find it a little suspicious for someone of your caliber to just pop up out of nowhere?" Zavala asked.

"Hmm….yes and no." Ikora considered.

"For part of it, they wouldn't care so long as I have the money and the expertise. For those that still doubt, I was able to forge identification. I even managed to infiltrate the necessary offices, databanks, and schools in order to authenticate it."

"Wasn't that dangerous?"

"Please, infiltrating a Fallen Ketch is dangerous. This was child's play." Ikora scoffed.

"But was it worth the risk?"

"Considering that I'm as legitimate as I can possibly be without being legitimate, I'd say so."

Zavala sighed in exasperation, but realized that Ikora was going to do what she was going to do, and she knew how to play this game far better than he.

"Cayde, how are things on your end?" Zavala inquired, switching topics.

"Well, first off, I just want to say, love the fact I can do fieldwork again. Just wish I had more stuff to kill." Cayde noted half-jokingly.

"Cayde-"Zavala said in an unamused tone.

"Second, turns out this whole 'magic' thing goes a lot deeper than we thought." Cayde interrupted, turning serious as he began his report.

"How deep?" Ikora asked, suddenly intrigued.

"Apparently there's almost a whole other world hidden right beneath the one on the surface. There's a lot of different words and terms to describe the two, depending on what region you're in and what culture you ask. Some call it the magical and mundane world." He explained.

Then he paused, chewing over a piece of information before decided to recall it.

"I've also heard the world on the surface being called the mortal world. Something I don't like the implications of." Cayde warned.

"Why not?" Zavala questioned.

"Because if they're calling world on the surface the mortal world, that must mean that there's something in this magical world that is immortal. Something big enough to warrant the distinction." Ikora explained.

"…Something like the hive?" Zavala suggested.

"Or their gods." Cayde supplied

"That news is worrying. What about their capabilities? Is the Magical world a threat to humanity?" Zavala

"That's the million glimmer question, isn't it?" Cayde remarked, leaning against the table he had made the house of cards upon.

"It's also really complicated. When I said it was a whole other world, I wasn't kidding. It has its own factions, cultures, races, peoples. And humans are still a large part of it. Sort of, anyway."

"You see, a large fraction of this world is composed of magically inclined humans called mages, or witches and wizards depending on the region. They essentially have a diluted and weakened form of light in them. Within them, the vast majority want to keep humanity around, though some consider mundane humans to be second-class citizens."

"Human Wizards?" Zavala said skeptically.

"Hey, the name came from far before we met the hive. It had to start somewhere." Cayde admonished.

"Cayde's right, the names came from well before we met the traveler. During that time they were just considered stories, but perhaps there was some truth in it after all."

"Now, outside that are large groups of demi-humans, monsters, creatures, and a whole bunch of other things. Some are intelligent, others are really just beasts. And in general, there are a wide variety of rules for how to kill all of them. Some need silver, some need celestial bronze, etc etc." Cayde continued

"But, I have good news." He announced.

"Which is?" Zavala inquired

At his prodding, Cayde drew his favored oversized revolver, the Ace of Spades for effective, "Any and all light infused weapons and gear is effective against them."

"So we can kill them?" Zavala verified.

"Oh yeah. I even killed a few monsters that were supposed to be straight up invulnerable unless you used a special magic metal or something." He confirmed.

"They only thing I had trouble with was some of the things that were incredibly heavily armored. Like this one big lion thing I found. I mean, eventually I just shot it to death, particularly in the face, but it was one hell of a bullet sponge." Cayde explained.

"Nothing we aren't familiar with." Ikora dismissed.

"True." Cayde acknowledged, "But that's really all I got. What about you, Zavala?"

"I...might need your help soon." Zavala admitted.

"You what?" Cayde jerked, surprised by the admission.

"After lots of digging, I've finally located the black garden. But it's significantly more defended than it was before. I'd rather not face it alone." He explained.

"How is it defended?" Ikora asked.

"From what I could see? A Cyclops, No less than three Hydras, dozens of Minotaurs, and countless Harpies and foot soldiers." Zavala listed, "And the darkness there is extremely thick. I'd rather not take any chances in there."

"Alright." Cayde agreed with shrug, "If it means keeping your ass alive and taking down the Black Heart before it becomes a problem I'll lend a hand."

"The Black Garden would be a good place to set up base. The Crucible expansion Shaxx set up in there proves that it's viable, and no other place in the solar system is as secure or has the resources we need. Plus, being able to study the Black Garden more deeply would be invaluable." Ikora responded thoughtfully.

"She means 'yes'" Cayde supplied, earning him a halfhearted glare from her.

"Good. In the meantime, I'll work on shoring up the beachhead." Zavala nodded.

"We'll be there in a week. I have some things I need to wrap up before I leave and Cayde can help me with them." Ikora stated.

"I can?" Cayde questioned.

"Well if anyone can infiltrate the United States Pentagon and steal top secret information without anyone ever suspecting anything, it's you." She factually replied.

"Well I'm flattered, but why am I doing this?" He asked.

"Because we need to know what they know about this...magic." Ikora announced.

"And, we need to get Zavala a new identity."

* * *

 _A/n_

 _Now, one of the many things that inspired this was a fic called, "Humanity Knocks Back", in which the author had humanity take and X-Com approach to the worlds of Vampire Rosario and Bleach. Basically it was a "Humanity Fuck Yeah!" fic, where the typically underestimated, tossed aside, and "powerless" humans become contenders and even victors up there with the big boys in the universe through science, teamwork, stealth, and in general being devious bastards that don't know the meaning of surrender._

 _So, despite the presence of the Vanguard, they are not going to be soloing their way through everything._

 _As seen by the creation of the Ishtar Collective, they are going to be upgrading humanity to the point where they can fend for themselves._

 _Because if there's one thing I noticed, looking back at PJO, it's that Rick Rordain seemed to downgrade humanity. Like, he used several notable and prominent humans in history as examples of Demigods. As if to say, "All of the best humans were actually that good because of the gods. Not because humanity is awesome"_

 _Plus, a lot of the things about the Gods in general just make the physics in me hurt. Like, Apollo in general._

 _And as for the Fatebreaker thing, here's how that makes sense._

 _In Destiny, there is a faction known as the Vex, who are cyborg robots with hive-mind characteristics and can control time, to an extent. They have computers made out of planets that allow them to predict the actions and thoughts of individuals with simulations so accurate, the individuals go insane because they can't tell if they're real or a simulation of the Vex._

 _Basically, the Vex can see, and to a certain extent, control the future. Just like the Fates._

 _But Guardians, thanks to their light, are one of the only things they can't foresee, predict, or fully control. If the Vex can't do it, and they turned Mercury into a giant machine in a matter of days, then I'm going to say that the Fates can't either, making them Fatebreakers._

 _They are not constrained by any prophecy made, and can completely invalidate even the most basic one because of their unpredictability._

 _I'm also going to be working the basis that Space Magic is greater than regular Magic. Which makes sense cause space makes earth look like a tiny insignificant little atom in a grain of sand at the bottom of the fucking ocean._

 _I'm also going to be working on the theory that this is mostly the same universe as the one they left, with a few minor differences. And I might be doing minor crossovers or references with other works of fiction if it fits, but I'm going to try not to just have this turn into a 40-way mashup where everything is a crossover or reference to something else._

 _That would be...ugh._

 _Do not want._

 _But this is also an experiment. I'm going to be posting 4 chapters of this over the next month as a trial run to see how it does. If it does well, I'll continue, if not, I'll drop it._

 _So in any case, I'll be seeing yall later with chapter 2. Hope this one piqued your interest._


	2. Chapter 2: Distortion

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 **Vanguard**

 **Chapter 2:**

 **Distortion**

 _A/n:_

 _Happy new year all, this is sort my way of kicking it off for me._

"Huh…" Said a slightly mechanical voice.

"What?" Was deep, masculine response.

"I just thought the gate was, you know, above ground." The first voice commented

Something worth commenting, seeing as how the three were now standingl in a massive cavern underground. Before them stood several ruins, shaped like basic building blocks fashioned from stone. Upon closer inspection, the blocks were too perfectly cut to be made by any human hand. Each shape too perfectly geometric to be natural. Beyond all this lay something decidedly unnatural.

A large ring, of sorts, lay half buried in the ground. It was made of a dark bronze metal, and while perfectly circular in it's basic shape, all sorts of prongs, rods, and antennae stuck out of it. In fact, it seemed to be two rings, one outside of the other, connected by said prongs. The Ring was emitting some kind of energy, some kind of feeling of…displacement. As if everything you did was…off…by a few seconds.

To most, it would have been disconcerting.

To these three, it was the telltale sign of a Vex gate.

"I have to admit, I would have thought it would have been above ground as well." Ikora, the lone female, and human, of the group added. She wore a helmet, this time, instead of leaving her face bare. It was a dark helm, smooth and oval shaped to fit her head. There was no elaborate design nor external protrusions on it. Only darkness. Darkness so black it seemed to both absorb and reflect the light around it. It was an infamous helm, known only as the Obsidian Mind.

"It's in the same place it was before, it's just that in this timeline it's still buried under a mountain." Zavala, the Awoken Titan of the group explained. Upon his head he wore a helmet composed of segmented silver panels. Each was opaque, and while seemingly fragile, were in reality fashioned from some of the hardest materials known to the tower. It was famously renowned for titans that inspired others as the Glasshouse.

"I feel like I would have noticed a mountain range in my time here." Cayde, the single inorganic hunter of the trio noted. He head was hooded, as opposed to the other two. His cloak coming up to cover his head. Even still, it wasn't enough to hide the three glowing lights of the Mask of the Third Man.

"You would have." Zavala agreed,

"If the Cabal hadn't leveled it."

"Ah…that does sound like them." Cayde nodded thoughtfully.

"So I'm guessing that the Cabal leveled the mountain range to get to the Vex tech underneath." Ikora guessed.

"Correct. Otherwise the citizens of Freehold would have noticed the large Vex gate just outside the city." Zavala explained.

"You know, I've always wondered about that. I mean, they found vex on Venus, but never mentioned anything about mars. Guess that's why." Cayde commented.

"There doesn't seem to be anything here, yet." Ikora noted, turning to the Titan.

"That's because I killed the ones defending the gate already. It's what's on the other side that has me worried." He answered.

And without another word, he walked forward, marching toward the gate. Sparing a glance and a shrug at each other, Ikora and Cayde followed suite. Before them, the gate began to light up. A blue pixilated light shone from the ring, and the world before them stretched and distorted. It was only years of experience with all manner of unorthodox travel, ranging from FTL jump drive to simple Blink, that prevented them from becoming ill from the transit.

"That's always going to feel weird, isn't it?" Cayde quipped.

"At least you don't have a stomach to get sick with." Ikora shot back.

"Focus." Zavala intoned, his impatience leaking through his voice.

Ending their verbal spar with a short glance, the two looked forward once more. What they received was an unsettling sight.

Empty.

The ruins of the Black Garden were empty. It still had the hard geometric cut edges. The moss and overgrowth creeping heavily on every surface. The bronze metal substructure peaking out from underneath here and there, lights filtering across their surfaces as a sign of life.

But it was empty.

"Uh, Zavala, were are all the Vex?" Cayde asked.

"Awake"

"Zavala, these walls were lined with dormant Vex, you're telling me that they're all awake?" Ikora asked incredulously.

"Yes." He said gruffly. "It seems this time they've truly pulled out all the stops. Their numbers have grown since I last gave you an update."

"By how much?" She asked.

"They now have 6 ultras and 72 majors. The other foot soldiers are at approximately 60,000 "

"Well…that sounds like fun." Cayde commented sardonically.

Zavala gave Cayde a silent glare with his faceless helm, before turning to march forward.

As they marched through the Black Garden, the two late comers couldn't help but feel unnerved. They could feel the darkness around them, so thick and powerful, almost choking them. But at the same time, they couldn't see it. They knew the Vex were there, but they never showed. The Black Garden should have been teeming with Vex, and yet none were to be found.

That was, until they reached the cliff.

Rounding a corner they stopped at the edge of a cliff the faced the rest of the Garden. Looking out they could see why it was called a garden in the first place. Before them stood the miles and miles of Vex ruins, all it's fractured geometry, all it's unnatural lines. But upon these titanic monoliths of darkness, lay fields upon fields of life.

Black trees, green grass, and red roses filled the fields for as far as the eye could see. In the center of the massive cavern was a titanic rock climbing high. Looking higher they could see that they were still, in fact, underground. The ceiling simply lay hundreds of meters, if not kilometers, above them.

"Hard to believe such beauty exists in such a dark place." Ikora mused outload.

"Funny how the robots are the ones with a green thumb." Cayde quipped.

"There is our target." Zavala said, pointing out a canyon that lay buried within the fields.

"The Black Heart."

"And there…" Zavala said, shifting his aim, "Is our obstacle."

At first glance, it just appeared to be another field of flowers. Then a massive shadow passed over them, one with a single red flower on it. It was here they realized it was not a field of flowers, but an army of Vex. The shadow none other than the massive floating form of a Vex Hydra.

Cayde, left all but speechless, could only say "Well….shit."

"I've never seen so many Vex in one spot." Ikora said in worried wonder.

"It's just the first legion." Zavala explained.

"First?" Cayde questioned.

Zavala nodded, "There are six. Each one is lead by it's own Axis mind, acting as a type of general"

"That seems to be putting an awful lot of resources in one spot. Lots of micromanaging for the Vex." Ikora commented.

"But it's also extremely effective. The First Legion by itself nearly caught me. With this much processing power in one spot, they can easily strategize as well and as quickly as any human commander ever born as if they commanded a platoon, not a Legion." He further explained.

"…Are we sure this is a good idea?" Cayde asked, "Cause that seems like an awful lot of fire power for us to take down."

"I already have a plan for this, actually. I just needed help carrying it out." Zavala responded.

"...Its not 'fight, die, repeat,' is it? 'Cause you know I hate that plan." Cayde joked.

Zavala only sighed before crouching down on the mossy rock, pulling out his ghost which began to display a map. "So here's the plan."

 **In the Halls of Olympus**

"Have you seen Apollo anywhere?" Asked a voice, calm, measured, but with an underlying layer of annoyance not even centuries of experience could hide.

"Don't tell me you miss you brother?" A woman in white smirked. She had long, flowing, blonde hair, stormy grey eyes, and wore a shield upon her left bracer.

"No." Her opposite in silver staunchly denied.

"It's just that on the Winter Solstice meeting he usually shows up to bug me the first chance he gets. But he hasn't appeared. It has me…worried." She reluctantly admitted.

"Artemis, are you actually showing concern for your brother?" The Woman teased.

"I'm worried he has some big prank planned." The younger woman glared flatly.

"That does sound like him." The older admitted.

"He better not be trying to seduce one of my girls again." Artemis said with narrowed eyes, righteous fury burning with restrained force within them.

"I think he might have learned his lesson by know." Athena chided.

"Athena, you don't know Apollo. He is a shameless flirt, and would do it for the sole reason of riling me up." Artemis seethed.

"You don't even know if he's doing it, and you're already riled up."

"That's how good he is!" Artemis growled through grit teeth, her posture rigid with anger.

"You know what, I think you need more Ambrosia." Athena said with a strained smile, leading the shorter goddess to the banquet table.

After getting the goddess of the hunt properly filled with the golden drink, Athena thought she could breath a sigh of relief.

"Athena, you haven't seen Hades yet, have you?"

Athena restrained an angry sigh at the query, instead settling to make a face of hidden fury at the fates, before turning to greet the man with a pleasant and welcoming face.

"What?" She said, playing dumb, hoping he would leave her alone.

"Hades. He hasn't shown up yet. I mean, usually he's late, showing up all theatrically, but…I don't know, I have a bad feeling." Said the man before her.

Now, unlike several of the gods currently standing in Olympus, this one had decided to remain in his mortal attire. Apparently he had grown in love with it.

Then again, Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt did seem to suit his lazy personality.

"Posiden," She began tiredly, "I have no idea where your brother is. Why not ask someone else."

"Well…" He began

"Zeus would probably laugh it off and say something like, "Good riddance", Ares…wouldn't really care. Aphrodite would probably turn into some kind of gossip scandal. Hephaestus would go, "huh". Hera would just kind of scowl at me. Hermes would-" he listed off with his fingers.

"Okay!" Athena interrupted, tired of him listing them off.

"It just so happens that Artemis was looking for her brother too, so I guess I can look for him too." Athena explained.

"Wait, they're both missing?" He questioned.

"Yes." She said flatly, not seeing the relevance.

"You don't suppose, "he began before taking a cautionary look

Taking a step closer, he whispered to something.

"You don't suppose this has anything to do with the Prophecy, do you?" He conspired.

She recoiled in confusion, "Why would it?"

"Well, Hades has to deal with the Fates, while Apollo deals with the Oracles. The two entities that would be related to this." He pointed out.

Athena thought it over for a moment, no more, whilst giving the god a flat look, "I'm pretty sure it's just coincidence."

"Why would you even jump to that? It feels like a stretch." She commented.

"Oh, no reason." He said evasively and unconvincingly.

"Right…" She drawled, not believing that for a moment.

"Well I'm going to go look for them." She announced, turning to leave.

"Good luck." He waved cheekily, only serving to further ruin her already poor mood.

 _I hate family_ , she thought with a sour frown as she walked away.

After what felt like hours of trying to avoid her "family" for fear of more requests, finally Zeus announced it was time to begin the meeting. When they all gathered, it was then that Athena noticed the rather conspicuous absence of Apollo and Hades.

 _Alright_ She confessed internally, _now I'm worried._

"Well, it seems we have some missing attendees." Zeus chuckled. "Oh well, the less doom and gloom we get the better."

"But isn't Apollo usually the life of the party?" Poseidon remarked casually.

Zeus frowned in his thrown, rubbing his dark beard with his free hind whilst the other held his infamous bolt.

"You make a good point." He admitted, "I suppose this balance at work. Lose some darkness, lose some sunshine."

"Regardless, we should get on with the meeting." He brushed it off.

Suppressing a sigh at his relaxed state, she moved on. _I suppose this is what happens after millennia of knowing each other. A year or two of missing each other doesn't mean too much._

Seeing no objections, either through actual observance or bull-headed arrogance, Zeus decided to continue. "So, I would like to announce-"

WHOOSH

Suddenly a large vortex of darkness appeared in the center of the room, silencing and word out of Zeus's mouth. It whirled and roared for a moment, before dying down and dissipating.

In it's wake, stood two very familiar figures.

"YOU!" A…slightly…inebriated Goddess of the Hunt roared, jolting up from her throne.

"Hey sis." Responded her brother with a bright, carefree smile.

In the middle of the room stood two very different men. One wore a red tee shirt, sneakers, and a pair of sunglasses. His short blonde hair seemed to shine with some kind of ethereal light, and his skin held a healthy tanned radiance.

By contrast, the man by his side was shrouded in a black cloak, with only obsidian gauntlets and boots peeking out from the edges of it to hint at what he wore beneath. His hair was long and black, while his skin was a deathly pale. His face was grim and showed not patience for nonsense at the moment.

"Apollo, Hades…what is the meaning of this?" Zeus glowered.

"Right…" Apollo cringed, remember his place.

"We were late, weren't we?" He whispered to Hades.

"You say that like I should care." Hades responded icily.

Apollo shrugged it off, instead saying, "You know what, I could grow to like being fashionably late. Makes me kinda the star of the show."

"WELL!" Zeus bellowed, losing his patience at them.

If Athena knew anything about Zeus, and she liked to think she did, she would bet that Zeus was angrier at being interrupted than because they were late. If they had interrupted Poseidon, for example, he would have been far more jovial.

"Right, we should probably get on with it." Apollo cringed.

Then he pulled a book from behind him some kind of portable computer.

 _Right, a laptop_. Athena reminded herself. _It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up these mortal inventions. Just a few decades ago they had computers the size of rooms. Now they are hundreds of times more powerful, and can fit on your lap._

 _What will they think of next?_

"So, me and Hade here have an announcement to make." Apollo said.

"Can it wait?" Zeus questioned with an annoyed tone.

"No." Hades answered evenly.

Zeus sighed almost despondently before waving them on to continue. "Very well"

"Why don't you start it?" Apollo said, looking up at the comparatively towering form of Hades.

Hades spared the sun god a glance, before looking out to the audience they had gathered.

"You are all probably wondering why the two of us are here together." He began, his deep voice rumbling out through the gilded marble halls. "It is because we have discovered a problem."

"A problem with fate."

Everyone in attendance blinked in surprise, not comprehending or not wanting to comprehend what that meant.

"Four years ago, there was an incident with the Fates in the underworld. At first I thought it to be a small problem easily resolved." He continued. "It was not."

"Imagine my surprise when three years ago Apollo comes to me, saying he has a problem with his Oracles."

"What was the problem?" Zeus asked, not thoroughly intrigued, and quite possibly even worried.

"The Fates…have lost control." He answered.

"Of what?" Zeus narrowed his eyes.

"Of everything."

The eyes of Zeus slowly widened, as did the eyes of all gods in attendance.

The Fates were supposed to control time, fate, the future, the destinies of every man woman and child on the planet. Even the gods themselves were, to a degree, bound by them. For them to have lost control…

"That's not entirely correct, Hades." Apollo chided as he messed around with his laptop.

Hades sighed, but conceded the point. "The Fates have lost control of the future. They can neither see it with certainty, nor control it. The present, past, and near future, however, is much more certain to them, and they can still change it to a degree."

"That's still extremely bad." Poseidon pointed out.

"How did this happen?" Athena asked

"Apparently it started when several new threads entered the Yarn. Not entirely unusual at first, so they shrugged it off. However, the threads grew bright, too bright to read. Then they grew and multiplied, infecting every other thread and string in their weave of fate. Before long, they had lost control." Hades explained.

"What does that mean?" Aphrodite asked.

"It could mean a lot of things, but what it probably means is that several new souls were introduced. They could have been born, but the Fates seem to think of them as being foreign or wrong, so I'm willing to bet they aren't native to our time in some way." He began. "These souls were special in some way, something shielded them from the power of the Fates, and as such they were outside their control."

"While the Fates could read everyone else, they couldn't read these small variables, and these new souls had apparently started making a large impact on the world around them. Without being able to see these very important variables, soon everything spiraled out of control. Everything they touched caused a chain reaction, changing what was supposed to happen. Before long hundreds of thousands of changes had been made, each one unknowable, and millions of billions had yet to occur." He finished.

"And…how does Apollo play into this? Zeus asked, almost worried about the answer.

"Because…" he began distractedly, still typing on his laptop, "My oracles began to have many many visions and prophecies."

Looking up from his laptop, he actually looked Zeus in the eye with a face that brokered no argument as he spoke his next words. "They had hundreds of thousands of visions, and each one had another to counter it. Each prophecy had another prophecy that directly contradicted it, and another contradicting that one."

"So what we're saying is…" Hades began.

"…We've decided that every single prophecy that is in effect right now is completely null and void." Apollo finished.

"Every Prophecy?" Zeus stressed.

"If it hasn't been finished and still lies waiting in the future, it is completely invalidated." He answered.

"Even the big prophecy?" Poseidon asked, a thin layer of hope in his voice.

"Especially the big one. There are half a million variations on that one alone." Apollo stressed.

"And counting." Hades noted.

"Right." Apollo noted. "I've tried stopping the visions from coming through, but it's turning out to be a lot harder than I thought."

"Do we know why this is happening? What's caused this?" Zeus questioned.

"Is there anything similar running between the prophecies? Any patterns or similar themes?" Athena asked.

"Is it some kind of threat? A new enemy?" Ares asked, a measure of excitement in his voice.

"Ok, holdup." Apollo said, holding his hand up.

"To answer your question…" he trailed off, glancing up at Hades.

Hades looked down at the man, his shoulders seeming to sag in defeat, before nodding.

"Right, well, we have noticed a few patterns." He began.

"Now…" He began, browsing through the laptop, "There are repeated mentions of several…characters…for lack of a better word, as well as several themes."

"1,078 prophecies speak of some kind of Hunt. 2,037 mention Ishtar." He listed.

"Ishtar…" Athena pondered, "I wasn't sure she was still around. I had thought she had long since faded."

"Well apparently she's back." Zeus muttered.

"5,958 mention either Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Jupiter."

"What!" Aphrodite gasped.

"Why would the Romans be involved?" Zeus wondered.

Apollo shrugged helplessly, "If it helps, they might be talking about the planets, considering how often they mention the "great void", over 12,349 times."

"Speaking of which, here we get into the big ones." He mentioned. "A "great Darkness" is mentioned 20,797 times, with a great Light or dawning mentioned 20,908 times."

"Ares'll like this." Apollo muttered, "War is mentioned 135,735 times, in a lot of different contexts."

At that, Ares couldn't help but grin like man promised his day of glory.

"Conflict in general, is mentioned 587,239 times. This includes 349,672 times where conflict is implied, but not explained."

"Apollo, I believe these people have been waiting enough. Let them hear of the players involved in this play." Hades interrupted.

Apollo glared up at him with what could be called almost be called a pout, before sighing in defeat and turning back to his audience.

"What does he mean, Apollo?" Zeus commanded.

"Hades is reminding me of the multitude of characters involved." He replied, browsing through his laptop again.

"Lets start with… The Vex"

 **The Black Garden**

The ground trembled and shook under their power. Lose dirt and rocks bounced in the air as the energy violently trembled underneath. Then they came.

Bronze armored forms. Basic humanoid shape. Two arms, two legs, a head, and a central body. The core of the Vex armies, the Goblin. In the center of it's chest was a glowing white oval, cocooned in slender and organic bronze armor. The head was conically fan-shaped, starting narrow at the front, before expanding out wide at the back. In the center of the "face" was a single red eye, burning with the cold hatred of a thousand minds working as one.

And there were hundreds of them, walking in unison. Every step, every movement was made in concert.

But it was not these that were the ones to be worried about. They were the bulk, but they were neither the eye nor the sword, simply the distraction.

In the cliffs, solitary red eyes waited and watched for the right moment to strike with lethal precision.

In the shadows, massive forms moved silently ahead, searching for targets to eliminate with brutal aggression.

In the air, bronze beings floated with a solitary red eye surrounded by a trilateral pyramid with three sets of two whip like tails trailing behind them, watching for targets.

And above them all, was the titanic colossus that towered over the ridges of the cliffs, levitating over the ground with the greatest of ease. It resembled an upside down segmented pyramid with guns affixed to the sides, and a great glowing red head in the center. Surrounding it was a rotating blue wall hovering in the air.

It had sentries everywhere. Soldiers waiting for the slightest sign of attack. Assassins ready to strike. All it need do was express patience. Something that the Vex were intimately familiar with.

 **Olympus**

"What can you tell us of these…Vex?" Asked Athena, curious of this new player.

"What we have we're piecing together from what the oracles have said, and what little the fates have managed to see." Apollo explained as he pressed several keys on his computer.

"The Vex are mentioned many times with the 'Great Darkness'" Hades said.

"Are they this darkness?" Zeus asked.

"No, but they do seem to be allied with it. There are numerous mentions of them as 'Servants of the Darkness'" Apollo explained. "They're also mentioned as being 'clad in bronze, obsidian, and crystalline shells.'"

"'Legions of them march tirelessly under one mind. Their steps trembling the ground beneath their very feet.'" Hades quoted. "'Their eyes burn bright with the fires of hate'"

"'Harnessing the power of the great void, they twist and turn the rivers of time.'" Apollo added.

"Time?" Poseidon questioned

"Yes, time is referenced a lot with these guys. They're described as 'timeless', 'ageless', etc etc." Apollo answered. "There are even several times when they are either called, 'gods of time' or serving 'Time's Conflux'"

"I don't like the sound of these…'Time Gods'…" Zeus scowled.

"Kind of reminds you of dear old dad, doesn't it?" Poseidon commented with a quirked brow and a grim look.

"So are these the enemy? They sound like what caused this whole thing." Ares pointed out.

"We're not too terribly sure. From some visions, it sort of sounds like they might have done it, or at least had a hand in it. In others, it seems like they're having the same problems our Fates are having." Hades explained

"Wait, are you saying they have power on the order of the Fates?" Athena brought up, concern running through her at the thought of another entity not bound by their rules with powers on the order of magnitude as the beings that controlled fate itself.

"Possibly. It's not clear. There are references to a 'Vault of Glass' guarded by the covers of Venus." Apollo answered.

"So we should ask Venus?" Aphrodite nervously asked.

"Again, might be talking about the planet. Not sure why Venus would have anything to do with these Vex." Apollo pointed out.

With those words, the Goddess of Beauty breathed out a breath of relief, but only for a moment.

"You said that the Vex were having a similar problem to the Fates." Athena began, her mind working through the problem as it came to her.

"Does that mean there is another party responsible? This 'Light' to counter the Darkness?"

"Ah yes…the Light." Apollo cringed.

"Are they some kind of champions that will save the world from darkness or something?" Hermes asked casually, finding the typical setup boring.

"Well…given how a large number of the visions go, the Light is here to save the world." Apollo began

"…From us."

And with those words, the typical low clamor of the room dropped to a dead silence. Everyone and everything stopped. Even Hestia, normally working tirelessly in the background, froze at the implications of that.

"…Care to say that again?" Zeus said in a restrained tone, the quiet crackle of furious lightning heard just behind his voice.

"It's not a certain thing!" Apollo hastily backtracked.

"It's only mentioned in 12,493 out of the 1,234,349 that mention the Guardians of Light!" He exclaimed "And, I mean, there's a roughly equal number of mentions for them saving us from the darkness, saving us from the apocalypse, or even saving us from ourselves."

 _That's…barely even 1%_ Athena noted surprisingly, _But I still feel that over 12,000 mentions is too much for us to ignore._

"Who are these Guardians of Light? You haven't mentioned them before, and over a million mentions feels like something we should know about." She said instead.

"Well, they aren't called the Guardians of Light that many times, there's only about 10,000 mentions of them as that, but by pouring over everything we had, we connected the 100 or so names that they had been referred to as." Apollo explained.

"And the titles…well, some are pretty disturbing." He admitted as he nervously rubbed the back of his head.

"Like?" Ares asked, more excited at the prospect of a challenge than worried.

"…Guardians, Immortals of Light, the Reborn, the Undying, the Timeless Warriors, the Guardians of Humanity, the Shepherds, the Usurpers, the Revolutionaries, the Outsiders, the Followers of the Traveler, the Heralds…" He listed, before he paused.

He knew full well the reaction that some of these later titles would have, and he knew he wouldn't like it. But he also knew that they had a right to know. So, with a breath of courage, he spoke them.

"King-slayer, War-bringer, Ruin-walker, Death-maker, Slayer-of-Kells, Conquerors of Luna, Lords of Iron, Fatebreakers, Forgers-of-Destiny, Empire-Breakers, Apocalypse-bringers," He listed,

"…God-Slayers" He finished.

"…God-Slayers…" Zeus muttered, tasting the word in mouth.

"Yes, God-Slayers. That one is mentioned several times. Slayers of Oryx, Slayers of Crota, Conquerors of Times-Conflux, Champions of the Traveler." Apollo elaborated, "And the way the Traveler is referred to, it sounds like some other god, a powerful and ancient one."

"And Crota and Oryx?" Poseidon asked

"Also Gods, and also very powerful and ancient, but they aren't referred to much, only 173 times." Apollo answered.

"But the other thing to note is that there seems to be three of them," Hades announced.

"Three guardians? That's all?" Ares complained.

"Three is more than enough to cause problems, if they have the strength," Zeus noted.

"All these titles are well and good, but what can you actually tell us about these guardians? Right now we have nothing to go by other than that they are dangerous." Athena pointed out.

"Alright, fair enough." Apollo conceded.

"First, we have the Hunter."

And with that, all eyes flickered to Artemis.

 **Black Garden**

While the eyes of the Axis Mind were spread far and wide, they could not see everything.

They couldn't see the distortion of light pass quickly through the shadows, guided by the feet of being with a little over 200 years of experience tracking the most dangerous prey in the System.

So the Hunter watched and waited, getting into the perfect spot. He knew what to do, he knew how to aim, and he knew where to shoot. As a Hunter he knew he would only get one shot, and he knew just how to make it count.

And as the legion of Vex rounded a corner in the canyon, he knew what to do.

The instant the lumbering form of the Hydra turned around the bend, a line of purple light shot out from the shadows, arcing through the air before slamming into the base of the Hydra's chassis. Upon contact it exploded into a ball of light, before collapsing upon itself into a small tight orb of swirling violet energy.

The ball churned and roiled angrily, creating a massive gravity field around, it, making all those in the area feel 20 times heavier. Then, several purple lines of light shot out, tethering the Axis Mind, and 5 Vex standing near it.

Once tagged, they became trapped, unable to move, unable to talk, unable to act.

Helpless.

 **Olympus**

"Why are you all looking at me?" Artemis scowled.

"Well, he did just mention a Hunter." Hermes pointed out.

"Yes, hunter, male, as in having nothing to do with me!" She angrily shouted, feeling offended at the idea they would all assume she would have something to do with a male simply because he was called hunter.

"Technically, it doesn't specify the hunter as male, but you are the only one among us who could really judge a hunter." Apollo mentioned.

"'Sides…" He smirked, "Maybe he'll be the man who finally takes your heart."

"You pig!" She roared in defiance, standing from her throne in anger at her teasing brother.

"On a more important note," Hades interrupted, steering the conversation back on topic while Aphrodite calmed the goddess of the Hunt. "The Hunter is often called 'Time's Seeker', or the 'Raider of the Vault'. Even the 'Keeper' on occasions, primarily of arms."

"An odd item for a Hunter to carry, sounds like the job of an armorer or warrior." Hephaestus muttered.

"So do the Oracles imply that this Hunter is comparative to Artemis's Huntresses, or even herself?" Athena asked, curious about he could actually do.

"Actually, the Hunter's referred to as the 'The Nightstalker, 'the Bladedancer', and 'the Gunslinger', oddly enough." He answered.

"Gunslinger? You mean he uses guns?" Ares said, surprised that anything related to the gods used guns, other than him of course.

"That's what it sounds like." Apollo agreed,

"It's far from impossible to make bullets from celestial bronze." Hephaestus noted, "I'd do it myself if it weren't so time-consuming to make a sizeable number and there was a greater demand for it."

"But that is only one of the three. The next, is called the Warlock."

 **Black Garden**

From out over the edges of the cliff shot three enormous balls of purple light. The arced across the sky, screaming silent death, before finally impacting in the formation of an equilateral triangle, with the Axis Mind in the center of the barrage.

Upon contact with the Vex, each orb violently ruptured, releasing the explosive power contained within the Nova Bomb. Void light filled each Vex drone in the radius, causing it in turn, to detonate violently in purple light. A massive cascade of secondary explosions chained out from the central three blasts, creating a wave of devastation traveling outwards.

In the aftermath, three swirling vortexes of the Void were left in the craters of the initial blast. Everything that was left was sucked into and torn apart by its furious hunger.

And at the center of it all, hovered the Axis Mind itself.

Its hull, fashioned from ancient celestial metals capable of withstanding the force of small meteoroid impacts. Under the force of four micro-artificial singularities, three surrounding it and one placed upon its base, it's celestial plating was torn asunder. Ripped and shredded from their bearings, holes and scars were upon it as it was literally ripped apart in the nexus of a storm of Void light.

Even still, it resisted.

It managed to turn, ever so slightly, and face the cliff that was the source of these attacks. It managed to calculate the right spot, the perfect angle, and the right timing to hit it's hidden target with surety.

Finally, it let loose a barrage from it's dual heavy torch hammers, massive starship-grade cannons that fired explosive blasts of disintegrating void capable of leveling a mountain.

 **Olympus**

"Isn't that just another word for a wizard?" Hermes asked

"Yes, it is." Athena answered, narrowing her eyes as suspicion took hold, "Which makes me think that Hecate would have something to do with this."

"Just like Artemis?" Poseidon commented snidely.

At a harsh glare from the Goddess, Athena decided to remand her position, "perhaps she could provide us with useful information about this…'Warlock'."

"And I'm assuming that there are various titles for this one as well?" Zeus inquired.

"'Conqueror of the Crucible', 'Master of the Hidden', 'The Challenger', to name a few." Apollo answered, "But just like the Hunter, three stood out."

"'The Warlock is the Voidwalker, the Sunsinger, and the Stormcaller." He announced.

Zeus shifted uncomfortably in his seat, "Stormcaller?"

"If you're wondering, yes, I think they might be talking about lightning storms. There was more than one reference to lightning." Apollo responded, only serving to further upset Zeus.

Scowling darkly, he looked down upon the tow and said, "I already don't like them."

"How do you think I feel? Apparently, he's called Sunsinger, that my job!" Apollo exclaimed, only half joking.

"He?" Artemis inquired with a raised brow.

"Well, Warlock is supposed to mean male mage, like Wizard. Otherwise, it would have said mage or witch. It was surprisingly very clear about Warlock. Relatively speaking, of course." Apollo explained.

"You said there were three." Ares interrupted.

Apollo swallowed nervously, something he had felt he had been doing far too much recently. Sure, he liked being the center of attention, but not when that meant he had to be the bearer of an unending torrent of bad news.

"Right…the last one…" Apollo trailed off.

"Has my dear brother forgotten?" Artemis teased.

Artemis, Athena decided, should probably not get drunk again. Truth be told, it was a lesson she had learned a long time ago. She had simply willed herself to forget that horrible night.

Those that forget their history are doomed to repeat it She woefully quoted.

"No, it's just…" Apollo tried to say, but was stymied by his reluctance and fear of what would happen when he did.

Fortunately, he wasn't alone.

"The last of the Guardians is quite possibly the most dangerous." Hades stepped in. "For it is called one title above all others."

"The Titan"

 **Black Garden**

Each blast made the cliffs tremble beneath them. Dust was thrown high into the air, and the ancient stone was turned into nothing but ashes. Beneath this, however, the Vex Machinery remained strong. Both being of the same mind, each was safe from the other, a failsafe to allow for the Vex to guard their strongholds without holding back for fear of destroying that which they sought to protect.

So as the dust rose, it seemed all was gone, the intruders annihilated. This Axis mind, which had never encountered anything like the Guardians, knew no better.

So it was when a shining violet light stood upon the bronze cliff, like a beacon in the darkness, that it had to reprocess what it knew.

A purple dome stood fast above it, standing upon the Vex machinery impervious to friendly harm. The perfectly spherical dome hummed with the power of Void Light, resolutely defending against anything that would dare break through. Through the transparent shell, the Axis Mind could see the forms of three Guardians inside the bubble, all completely unharmed.

Within the dome, the Guardians looked down upon their prey, now damaged and alone. It would be some time before the rest of its 10,000 member strong Legion would get here, considering all the trap Cayde had placed.

They felt invigorated by the power of the bubble's protective light filling them. It empowered them. Their armor, their weapons. All boosted with the strength of the Titan's will. So they stepped forth from the protective bubble, enshrouded in a blue light of power, and raised their weapons.

The Axis Mind tried to launch a second barrage, but it was too late, it'sits time had already come.

Dozens of shots rang out in moments, thunderous bangs boosted with the power of their Light. Each round from Hand Cannon, Assault Rifle, and Scout Rifle flew forward, colliding with the titanic bronze being before them.

The Light infused rounds hit with a force they had no right to carry. They carved holes through the already damaged plating, stripping it of its protection. The Axis Mind tried to resist, but it was too much. It was too damaged, and their fire was too fierce.

With one final shot from the Ace of Spades, one last bullet spun from the barrel. It hammered home, passing through the holes left by its brethren and smashing through the fragile plating left, before finally ending its mark in the central core of the Hydra.

With that last round, the Hydra stopped. The hulking mass dropped to the ground, crushing it's shredded body under its own weight. The Guardians looked on at the collapsed wreck, knowing it was not the end.

Soon enough, a glow and a whine were emitted from the metallic corpse. They grew and grew, and the Guardians casually took a step back to their protective bubble. Finally, the beast ruptured.

A blinding white light exploded from the wreck, preventing the Guardians from seeing what was happening. But despite that, they knew what was happening. The core of the Hydra, powered by the heart of stars, had lost containment.

The ensuing explosion was devastating, and often fatal, if temporarily, to those Guardians who were too close to it or locked sufficient protection.

When the light died down, the Zavala saw fit to finally disperse the bubble. Stepping back over the cliff, they looked down to see the new terrain of the Black Garden. Everything in the immediate area had been stripped of its cover, leaving nothing but the skeletal bronze Vex Machinery underneath.

"Well," Cayde began with a surprised and triumphant sound, "That's one out of six."

 **Olympus**

"A TITAN!" Zeus bellowed, finally

After Hades spoke the word, the room had gone dead silently. Everyone stopping to wonder, Had I really heard that?

But it seemed that the mind of Zeus had finally rebooted.

And it was not happy.

Getting up from his throne, lightning crackling in his eyes, he slowly walked over to the two in the center of the room.

"Are you telling me, a TITAN is one of the Guardians?" He challenged, his voice filled with fury.

This was what Apollo was afraid of. The sight of an enraged Zeus, while not uncommon, was always unpleasant and unwelcome. It was something that caused most gods to shake, or at the very least, second guess their life choices that lead to this moment.

"Potentially," Hades said neutrally.

Hades was not one of these gods. And it was because of this fact, that Apollo was infinitely glad that he had gone to the god of the Underworld with this. Having one of the Big Three on your side was always a good thing.

"Explain." Zeus seethed, trying to loom over and intimidate his brother.

"Once again, nothing is certain in these things. Every prophecy and fate is invalidated. All that is left is possibilities." Hades began "Does it say a Titan? Yes."

"But does it mean a Titan?" He asked rhetorically.

"I think," Athena spoke up, getting the attention of the room, "That until proven otherwise, we should assume the worst and think of it as one of the Titans"

"I feel like that's a bit rash," Poseidon argued.

"I like it," Ares spoke up.

"As do I," Zeus said in a tense voice.

"…It couldn't hurt to be prepared for the worst." Hephaestus admitted.

"But we don't know it's actually one of the Titans, right? It could just be, like, some kind of big guy. Or mean something else." Aphrodite countered, "And if we treat them as an enemy from the beginning, that could turn them into an enemy we might not have otherwise had."

"I agree with that, actually," Hermes said, nodding in assent.

"I…think we should prepare for the worst," Artemis said.

The other gods made their comments and arguments, but at the end of the talk, one thing was brought up.

"What Titan is it talking about?" Athena asked.

"To be honest, we aren't completely sure. Nothing says definitely one way or another. This could mean that it's talking about any of the Titans, it's being cryptic about one specific Titan, or it's not actually talking about the Titans, and is referring to something else entirely." Hades answered.

"But." He interjected, "If I had to take a guess…"

"I'd say Atlas."

"Atlas?" Zeus said, surprised, "Why him?"

"With titles like, 'The Wolf Commander, The Iron Lord, the Unbroken, the Hero of the Twilight' it certainly sounds like someone along the lines of Atlas." Hades explained.

"You haven't told him the worst part," Apollo whispered to him.

"There's worse?" Zeus said incredulously.

"The Titan is also called 'The Striker, the Defender', and most relevant, 'The Sunbreaker'," Hades responded.

"That sounds about the same as the others," Zeus commented.

"That's easy for you to say, you're not the one that's being broken." Apollo cringed.

"Well, I believe that you two have given much to think about," Zeus stated, beginning to pace in the room.

"We need to think about how to respond to these Guardians." Athena supplied.

"To be honest, it's not even a sure thing that they'll be relevant to us," Apollo noted.

"What do you mean?" Zeus questioned.

"All the things I just mentioned? They're only spoken of in a total of 5,973,134 visions and prophecies." Apollo began

"But we got over 500 million."

"500…" Poseidon whispered in shock

"Million?" Zeus finished incredulously.

"Yeah, that's why we said we're not sure of anything. I mean, half of all those prophecies about the Guardians say they're here to help. A lot say they won't even have anything to do with us. Only a few call them enemies." Apollo explained. "Most of the rest just seem to be a mess of prophecies we already had, along with a large number of irrelevant and just plain dumb ones."

"But I believe the biggest is the fact that the future has changed." Hades supplied.

"Because out of all 500 million prophesies, 300 million spoke of a Great Change."

 **Black Garden**

The three Guardians shielded themselves from the dying blast of the most recent Axis Mind.

"Well, that's three out of six. Halfway there." Cayde remarked.

"Yes, but if your trackers are anything to go by, the rest are converging at the entrance to the Black Heart, creating a last stand." Ikora pointed out grimly.

"It doesn't matter. We've succeeded in our initial objective, crippling their ability to lead and control the field." Zavala noted.

"With this, we can move about the Black Garden with impunity, positioning ourselves for the right time and place to strike. When we strike, we'll strike with a fire and fury that will wipe out their leadership. With the Axis Minds gone, the rest of the Vex will become the drones they normally are. It will become a simple horde of simple soldiers." He explained.

"That can still be dangerous," Ikora warned.

"Maybe to a new Guardian, but come on." The hunter dismissed, "We're the Vanguard. We can take'em'."

"I have to admit that I agree with Cayde. As long as we don't let ourselves be bogged down by their numbers, once their leadership is out of the way, the legions shouldn't be too much of an issue." Zavala admitted grudgingly.

"Exactly." Cayde nodded.

"Now all we need is enough firepower to take down three of the most powerful Vex in one of the most well-defended locations they have." He summarized.

"Simple."

 _A/n_

 _Well, this was a chapter._

 _Hot damn, I did not expect it to go for this long._

 _I didn't even get to the end of the Black Garden._

 _Ah well, I'll get it done in the next one. Probably, anyway._

 _in any case, we finally got to see the gods._

 _And man, was that weird to write. It feels weird writing godly characters as being so...human. It'd be like me writing Voldemort as being a cuddler. I could do it, wouldn't be too hard, but it would feel really fucking weird._

 _And kinda wrong._

 _But hopefully, I was accurate in my portrayal of them. To be honest, I didn't like the scene too much because of how many people were in there. I prefer to work with smaller situations. If there's any more than, say, 6 people involved in the conversation, it feels weird cause I have to try to manage all of them. Make sure no one's dead, and everyone's contributing something. Making sure the proper people are taking the lead, etc etc._

 _But onto the practical side of the godly side was saying. Basically, canon's fucked. Throw that shit out the window, cause it ain't happening._

 _Probably._

 _I've never really liked prophecies or fate. Especially when they're taken too seriously. When it's vague and all, "There's legends of a MacGuffin that could save the world," I'm more or less ok with that. What I don't like is, "According to this prophecy, you're the chosen one. Or evil. Either way, I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure this does or does not happen." Because that always makes it happen._

 _So yeah, step one, break fate. Fuck fate. It's gone, outta here, dead in a fire._

 _I'll also be tweaking time a bit, since I don't want to have to have this story take place over a decade ago. As was implicated, however, Poseidon has already met Sally. Percy isn't born yet, but he is already thinking about that possibility. Its why he asked about the big prophecy in particular._

 _Now, the fallout of that should be coming in the next chapter, but I make no promises._

 _As for the Guardian side, they're about to take out the Black Garden, which is much harder here than in the game._

 _In the game, the mission to kill the Black Heart is a joke. One mediocre Guardian can do it by themselves. So I buffed it to somewhere between strike and raid difficulty._

 _Which brings me to another point. Most Destiny crossovers are about one Guardian getting thrown to a place._

 _One._

 _I feel this undermines things, because the game is about teamwork. On top of that, everything in the game become exponentially easier with even just one friend to help you. With a full fire team, or god forbid, a well-oiled raid team? Well, you're all but unstoppable. So I decided to go with what could possibly be the strongest of teams, the Vanguard. If anyone's OP, it'd be them. Plus they have leadership skills, so they're more than people with guns. So more than just murdering the shit out of everything, they're going to be planning and setting up for the future._

 _As for exotics, they'll have some, but not all of them. I considered just giving them each one, but then I found that Cayde apparently had a stash of Exotics for when he finally got out of the Tower. I felt I could use that to give me some room to move, so to speak, but again, they'll only have a handful. Maybe 9 weapons and 9 armor pieces. Each one gets 3. Probably what I'll do, in any event._

 _And finally, in the last chapter WW1990WW_ _left an interesting review. So to answer some of his questions, I'm sure as hell not bringing the Judeo-Christian God into this, for, like, all of the reasons. And I honestly don't know enough about the Hindu gods at this point to say either way, but we'll see._

 _What I meant earlier when I said that this is mostly the same timeline as the one they came from, is that at some point the darkness comes and curb-stomps everyone. Even the gods. The only thing that pushed the darkness back was the Traveler. Not a unification of all gods on earth, not earth magic, nothing. It was the light of the Traveler that saved the day. Which means the traveler, and by extension, the darkness, is stronger than all the pantheons on earth combined. Now, you don't fight the darkness itself, just it's minions, but the Hive are the closest thing to that. So through that process, I'm going to say that the servants of darkness can, at the very least, pose a viable threat to the "magical world" as a whole. Everything from wizards to gods. Which means that the Guardians, in turn, are a major threat._

 _I am going to clarify something, however, the Guardians aren't going to be picking a fight with the gods, or the magical world as a whole. If they see a threat to humanity, they'll take care of it. If they're attacked, they'll deal with it. But if there's a Pantheon that's just chillin and being cool dudes, the Vanguard aren't going to pick a fight with them. That being said, considering how the Greeks seem to act, i wouldn't be surprised if one or more them took offense to the Guardian's very existence, and the threat they **could** be, and decided to try to kill them early. _

_So, will the Vanguard have gods on their side?_

 _Sorta._

 _I mean, theyll work with anyone willing to work with them that they approve of. Aliies and all that. But I'm probably not going to unilaterally have one whole pantheon join up with them._

 _But that's about it for now. You enjoy the rest of the new year, and I'll see you again soon with chapter 3._


	3. Chapter 3: Cascade

**Vanguard**

 **Chapter 3**

 **Cascade**

 _A/n:_

 _Sorry this took so long to come out. Hopefully the length makes up for that._

* * *

 **The Black Garden**

"Well…" The man turned machine began

"It looks like one hell of a party down there." He commented as he looked through the sight of his LDR 5001 sniper rifle.

The Exo could easily see at least 10,000 vex in the central plaza of the entrance to the Black Garden, filling as many spots as possible. In the nooks and crannies of the cliffs lay the Hobgoblins, lying in wait.

Hobgoblins looked much like Goblins, but they had two horn like sensors coming out of their head, rather than the singular conical fan, as well as a tail like sensor device and a line rifle, the Vex equivalent of a sniper rifle. Except instead of using a bullet, it used high energy particles released at relativistic speeds.

Up above, the forms of Harpies in in the air providing reconnaissance could easily be seen. They weren't a large threat in it of themselves, only in numbers could they prove truly dangerous. The bigger problem was that they could alert the main force of their position. Or more likely, tell the muscle of the Vex where to go.

"It's not like we didn't see this coming." Ikora chided.

"It's only logical that they would consolidate their forces after so many loses." Zavala chimed in.

"You sure got that right." Cayde agreed. "So now we got them where we want them."

"Like rats in a trap."

The three of them of them were sitting at the base of one of the cliffs of the Garden, but still above the entrance of the Heart itself. They sat in the shadows of it, using the plethora of cover to mask their presence from the armies of Vex moving around.

"I wouldn't go that far." Ikora cautioned.

"Well, I mean sure, it's a defensible position." Cayde argued, "But it also means they have nowhere left to run, and no room to maneuver."

"It also means they have the advantage of better terrain and defensible positions. Not to mention, their teleporting abilities make much their constrained position less constant." The Commander pointed out, a frown evident in his voice.

Cayde let out an artificially induced sigh, his human mannerisms coming through more easily than one would suspect for a machine.

"Still, it would be unbecoming of us if we faltered before this threat." Zavala began, conviction in his voice.

"We are the Vanguard of humanity, it is our duty to purge the threats that lie in the dark, waiting to strike, regardless of the danger it presents to ourselves. If we balked in the face of adversity such as this, then we have no right to call ourselves Guardians of Humanity." He declared. "We killed the Black Heart once. We can do it again."

"Well said." Cayde agreed, lowering his sniper rifle.

"I couldn't agree more." Ikora commented, a measure of excitement in her voice.

"Then let's get in there, and get it done." He commanded, getting up from his position and walking toward the field of red that stood before them. He was soon joined by his compatriots, flanking him on either side.

They could have tried sniping the three great Axis Minds that guarded the door to the Heart, but there were a few problems with that.

First off, and most notably, they were hiding. They knew they were somewhere down there, but they didn't have line of sight. Either that, or the Vex were going to summon them through one of their many Gates once the Guardians actually showed up.

The second problem was that they likely wouldn't be able to snipe for too long before their positions would be tracked down and squads of Vex would descend upon them. To be honest, that wasn't even a major issue. Squads of Vex could be easily dealt with, and they could always stay on the move to avoid patrols.

The third problem being that if the Axis Minds were Hydra's, they could just position their matrix barrier to block all of their shots.

Long story short, they needed to get in closer and have multiple angles of attack.

And so it was, in a puff of smoke they disappeared from sight.

Down in the valley where the entrance to the Black Heart lay, a lone Hobgoblin stood in silent watch. It's burning red eye in the middle of its head watching any and all movement before it as its horned head scanned left and right.

Unfortunately for it, it never saw the shadow drop down behind it.

And with the knife bursting through its precious Mind Core in the middle of its chest, it never would.

Across the way, another Hobgoblin detected the demise of its brethren and turned to find the source, only to receive a knife to the chest for its trouble. Each fell within moments of each other, the white fluids of the organic organism they used to be bursting out. But they silent Hunter merely moved on to other targets, sparing no time to admire his marksmanship or skill with the knife. He took simple pleasure in the kill, but didn't waste his time admiring the kills of insignificant pawns such as them.

Moments later, all Hobgoblins in the area had either been killed or tagged as priority targets. As a consequence of his actions, however, the Vex knew the Vanguard were there. They didn't know where, but they knew enough to be on alert, to look at every shadow with suspicion and caution.

Unfortunately for them, this is the very moment that the Vanguard launched their attack.

In a flash of bright light, two steaks of lightning burst out from behind the rocks and cliffs in front of them. Before they could react, it was upon them. In an instant, dozens fell, disintegrated by the raw energies being unleashed upon them. Acting as if a force of nature, they carved massive gouges into the vex lines.

But this was no force of nature. This was the power of an expert Bladedancer and a Stormcaller working in tandem.

Ikora Rey, using the power of light to levitate off the ground and fly across it at tremendous speeds, had wreathed herself in raw Arc-Light, and unleashed it upon her foes. Massive streams of bright blue Arc-Light slammed into the Vex armies, obliterating each and every bronze shell it hit chaining to its brethren to do the same.

Cayde-6, channeling the frantic power of Arc-Light through both himself and his monomolecular blades flitted across the battlefield. He moved faster than even the Vex eye could track, seemingly flashing from one place to another, in his wake leaving a thousand electrified slashes. Each slash of the knife hit like a thunderbolt, completely disintegrating and decimating its foes and chaining to all it's brethren around it.

Soon dozens became hundreds as scores of Vex fell to the initial onslaught. The first line of Vex completely collapsed behind them, the aftershocks of Arc-light too much for their frames to handle.

But even still, with all their destructive power, the ocean of the Vex simply collapsed upon them. They could not take them all, not against thousands of Vex all in one spot. Despite their speed, some Vex managed to get in a lucky shot or two. Despite all their power, they couldn't destroy the massive tide fast enough. Soon, they found themselves spent, their supers expended, and their backs toward a large formation of rocks and Vex blocks in the Valley.

They fought to the end of their rope, killing as many as they could, drawing as many Vex toward them as possible. They held strong and fought hard. Each blast of the Ace of Spades explosively ending another Goblin. Each shot of the Badger CCL slung a bullet straight though the white mind core of another vex.

For a time, it seemed as if they could last forever like this. Holding back the tide of Vex, even just. But it was not to be.

Just when it seemed like the two of them could hold out, _they_ came. Massive white digital rings formed in three sections, each surrounded by three Vex Conflux towers, and in the middle of each tower was a large circular pad upon which the white rings grew. From these white rings, appeared three towering champions of the Vex.

Two were massive Hydra type Axis minds, one was blue and silver with a wide blue matrix floating around it. The other was bronze and orange with a three part orange matrix rotating about it. Then, between the two Hydras stood a massive obsidian Minotaur, a Gate Lord. Each one stood 5 stories tall, towering over the other Vex, and looming over the two guardians.

The Hunter and the Warlock spared each other only a brief glance, before they fired upon the two Hydras aiming for the central "eye" of each, behind which the core rested. But the heavy armor plating easily deflected each bullet. Sure, the armor piercing Light infused rounds would eventually break through, but that would take time. Time they didn't have.

So it was that the Axis Minds tired of this, and turned their Torch Hammers to the pair. So it was that they launched barrage upon barrage upon the Guardians. So it was that shielding light around them buckled and collapsed under the strain. So it was that the light infused armor warped and crumpled under the power. So it was that the two Guardians died, their bodies disintegrated down to the smallest atom, under the onslaught. And so it was that the Axis Minds and all Vex present, if only for a moment relaxed as the threat had been pacified.

Just as planned.

Suddenly, a figure wrapped in blue light charges through the field of dead Vex, jumping over the formation of rocks and ruins, before slamming down upon the crater the two Guardians died in. The armored figure thrusts his arms out in front and to the side of him, willing his light to do the one thing he does above all else.

Defend.

Surging forth, the purple void light spirals up his arms, pooling around him, and snapping into a spherical shape around him that cares not for what physically should obstruct it. The Vex try to react and assault him, but they are too late. Before they can act, the Ward of Dawn is complete, and it weathers the unholy assault like a Bastion weathers the storm.

Inside the safe shields of the Sphere, the two Ghosts of the Warlock and Hunter de-cloak, now finding safety. Acting quickly, the Titan pours more of his light into both, jumpstarting the revival process. In a burst of Light, both the Fallen Guardians are reintegrated, rebuilt from the ground up as if nothing happened in the first place.

"You know…" Cayde begins, rubbing his neck, "It's been a long time since I died."

"Long enough for it to feel strange again?" Ikora asked, taking the time to switch out her guns.

"Nah," the Exo dismissed casually, "It's like riding a bike."

"It's just that feeling of ending a streak." He commented, reloading and checking all of his weapons.

"If you two are done," Zavala interrupted, checking his own loadout one last time. "We have a job to do."

"Well, the plan worked. We drew the Axis Minds out." Ikora commented.

"And now we take them down, one by one." Zavala ordered them, "We focus on one at a time."

"We should start with the Gate Lord. He's the most mobile of the three, the others are just giant tanks." Cayde suggested.

"The two of you can focus on neutralizing him, I'll try and keep the foot soldiers off you." Ikora added.

"Agreed." Zavala nodded, racking the bolt back on his freshly reloaded Shadow Price.

"Sounds like a plan." Cayde commented, pulling out a knife in one hand, and holding his Ace of Spades in the other.

"Good." Ikora said, pumping her Invective.

"Because we have company."

No sooner did she say this, than did three large bronze armored figures, resembling uparmed and armored goblins, appear in a pixelated light around the bubble. Each stood nearly 3 meters tall, with broad shoulders and a bronze shell that mimicked a muscular form. At first glance, it didn't appear to have a head, but upon further analysis the head was almost buried into the shoulders of the massive frame, like it had no neck. In either shoulder rested another red eye, totaling to three including the burning orb in its head. In its hand was a massive weapon that seemed to be leaking something purple at the muzzle.

This was a Minotaur, the muscle of the Vex armies. Heavily armored, shielded, and wielding the power of hand held Torch Hammer, they were a force to be warry of for any normal guardian.

But these Guardians were far from normal.

As one, each Minotaur stepped into the bubble and slammed their free hand down in a chopping motion, hoping to corner and quickly eliminate them. Instead, each of the Vanguard flowed around them like water, effortlessly dodging the well-known attack, even in such cramped conditions. In an instant recovery, Cayde threw a smoke bomb at the face of the Minotaur in the middle.

It exploded in a gas infused with void light, draining and damaging the hostile enemies in its cloud. Blinded by the dark gas and burning under its effects, the Minotaurs helplessly stumbled through the smoke. Soon, each of the Void shields of them were popped by the force of the Void Light infused smoke, leaving them vulnerable.

Taking the opening, each guardian struck ferociously.

Cayde blew out the knee of one Minotaur, causing it to stumble to the ground. Once there, he obliterated the head with one powerful uppercut of his blade. Following up, he stuck his revolver in the hole made in its wake, and blasted three shots into the heart of the beast, ending it.

Ikora struck simply, but fiercely, simply blasting the Minotaur over and over with her Invective. Each retort of the shotgun blew off a chunk of the Minotaur, even despite its heavy armor. First an arm, then a leg, then the head, and before finally shredding the chest.

Zavala, however, was easily the most brutally effective. He didn't bother wasting bullets on the servant of Darkness. Instead, he kicked the knee joint of the Minotaur in, setting it off balance. Then he punched the head of the Vex unit, his fist carrying such crushing force that it completely crumpled the head. He followed up with a strong hook straight to the central chest of the cyborg, right where the mind core rested behind plates of bronze. Then, he finished by slinging a brutal haymaker wrapped in purple Void Light, straight toward the massive dent in the center of it.

Instead of just dying, the Minotaur began to disintegrate from the blow, turning to more purple light. All the light streamed towards the titan, wrapping him in bands of protective Void Light. When it was over, he was covered in a powerful glow, empowered by the energies of the Ward of Dawn he resided in, and the power of his recently slain enemy.

From the outside, all the army of Vex and Axis Minds could see was that the glowing purple bubble of Light had been filled with smoke, obscuring their vision.

Suddenly, the two beings of Light shot out of the bubble, one going left, the other right.

The Hunter used his abilities to jump around in random trajectories at rapid speeds, using the floor, walls, random Vex structures jutting out of both, and even off the very air itself. All the while, he took shots with his favored gun while in the air. Each shot hit it's mark, sending bullet spinning into the mind core of another Vex. Each time it did, it caused a chain reaction with the Light infused in the bullet and gun, causing the bullet and victim to violently explode, and for the gun to chime in pleasure, refunding each precise shot with another round in the chamber.

The Warlock used her control over her Light to negate gravity acting upon her, and using it to propel her quickly over the Vex terrain. All the while throwing glowing dark purple orbs into the crowd. Upon hitting the ground, each Scatter grenade denoted into a cluster of Void Light explosions, which chained to each killed enemy.

Combined, the two sent explosions rippling through the ranks, drawing the attention of the army in two different directions.

And away from center.

Flying up from the ball of smoke and Void Light in the center of the canyon, the Titan used his Light to give him a massive sustained blast of thrust in his intended direction. Soaring high above, he pulled out a large weapon. Long, black, and cylindrical, decorated with white and gold, and marked with golden winged wolves all across it, it was as much a piece of art as it was a weapon of untold destruction.

It was the Gjallarhorn, a rocket launcher built for the heroes of Twilight Gap.

Zavala took aim, and fire twice. With each pull of the trigger, a missile came screaming out of the barrel, shrouded in golden fury. It flew forward with the force of the honored dead, and detonated the armor piercing explosive in the face of the Gate Lord. Stunned by the onslaught, it recoiled, taking a step back.

Unfortunately for the Gate Lord, it didn't know the fury of the Gjallarhorn. It didn't know the power it held. It thought it was over.

So when a swarm of blue micro missiles flew out of the cloud of smoke, only to turn and reengage the Black Giant, it was caught unprepared. The micro munitions exploded on contact, burning more and more holes into its ancient armor.

Attempting to retaliate, the Vex turned their guns upon the Titan in the air. They unleashed hundreds of streaks of red light and purple bolts from Torch Hammers, all of it more than enough to lay waste to a guardian under normal circumstances.

But the Hero of Twilight Gap was wreathed in protective Void Light. Its effects both provided an over shield, and amplified the strength of his already present shields and armor. Altogether, it was enough for him to weather through the damage as he fell back to the ground. Reloading as he fell, he hit the ground with a roll, using the momentum to sprint behind cover.

 _That was close_ He thought, looking over all the burn marks, scratches, and dents that had formed while he waited for his shield to recharge.

Not wasting time to let them surround him, he jumped out of cover with fresh shields, quickly firing off two more missiles of the Gjallarhorn as he flew across the ground. Instead of flying, this time he stayed low, just hovering at high speeds above the ground, much like Ikora had been doing. Stopping behind cover far from his last position, he could tell that the Vex had focused all their attention on him because of how much damage he had done to Gate Lord.

Despite their logical processes, it wasn't unusual for them to fly into a blind rage when they took severe damage. Going after the ones who had hurt them last, instead of targets of opportunity.

Because of this, they didn't notice as the cloaked Guardian stepped out from behind a pillar to the far right of Zavala. He drew his treasured Ace of Spades with a spinning flourish, before raising it high in the air. He called upon the deep well of Solar Light within him, summoning it in a subdued flash and immolating his body in golden flames. He harnessed this raw energy, channeling it into his gun, infusing it with absurd levels of Solar Light, making it burn bright with that radiant energy.

Then held it forward, steadied the revolver with both hands, took aim, and-

 _ **BOOM!**_

In a thunderous blast, a golden streak of light exploded from the barrel and screamed through the air in an instant, filled with so much burning Solar Light that it turned the air around it to plasma. It slammed into the head of Gate Lord with the force of a small bomb. The shear heat and energy of the round melting and warping the armor around the head.

Angered, it slowly turned to the perpetrator of the attack. A fatal mistake.

Some, with the right training and gear, could get to 4 shots, or focus everything into one supercharged shot. But all these Hunters tended to summon a Solar construct made from Solar Light, a gun literally made of their own soul, which limited them to one or the other.

Cayde-6, after decades of practice, experimenting, and training, had succeeded in creating his own variation, where instead of creating a gun from scratch, he infused his own personal weapon of choice with incredible power. It meant he didn't have to waste his light creating the gun, and could put more of it into the actual power of the shots.

So when the Gate Lord turned, revealing it's precious glowing white mind Core in the center of its chest, Cayde took his chance and fired 3 more Overcharged Golden rounds into the center of the glowing white oval buried in its center in quick succession, fanning the hammer like a cowboy of the olden days. A cacophony of thunderous booms echoed a stream of blinding light.

The Gate Lord was built strong, with armor tough enough to withstand even the force a small nuclear detonation at close proximity. But the raw energy of 4 bullets infused with the power of the stars themselves hitting its vulnerable core at relativistic velocities was far too much for it. The final round tore a hole right through its center, blasting out of the back of the black giant, killing it for good. The final shot that purged all darkness from its chassis sent a chain reaction through it, violently converting all mass in it into Solar Light in a process similar to nuclear fusion.

The resulting deafening explosion of Light was blinding and devastating, turning all air in the immediate vicinity into plasma, and vaporizing much of the nearby Vex army. Those far enough away, like the Hobgoblins and Harpies, barely managed to survive. Those durable enough, such as the Minotaurs and other Axis Minds, managed to weather the onslaught.

In its aftermath, over three quarters of the once massive Vex army in the canyon was gone, little more than molten slag. And even the survivors weren't unscathed. The Axis minds, being closest to the explosion, had half their chassis melted off. Though they still hovered there, they had been severely crippled by this, each now missing one of their Torch Hammers.

Taking this opportunity, Zavala rolled out of his now melted cover, and launched two more rockets at the Hydra on the left. Not stopping to even bother reloading, he simply dropped the spent Gjallarhorn on the ground, allowing his ghost to transmat it back to his ship in orbit. Instead, he charged the stunned Hydra, pulling out his Conspiracy Theory and jumping toward it. He fired at it, sending waves of high velocity clustered armor piercing flechette designed to shred even tank armor at its wounded form.

The already damaged armor was eviscerated under the barrage of supersonic nail like projectiles. The face plate, the central target of the attack, was fractured and eventually shattered, leaving its core wide open.

Discarding the shotgun in mid-flight, the Titan pulled back his fist and braced for impact. Inside his clenched hand, golden light leaked out from wherever it could from the intense power collecting them. Colliding with the Hydra fist first, Zavala's punch smashed through the remnants of its defenses and reached the core of the infernal machine.

Retracting his fist quickly, he jumped away from the wounded cyborg, using his Light to fly away with great haste. In his wake, he left behind a fusion grenade resting inside the chassis of the Axis Mind. Not moments later, the micro fusion device set off a chain reaction that caused the Hydra to explode spectacularly.

At the same time, Ikora flew from her place behind the final Axis mind. She threw a fusion grenade of her own at its last working Torch Hammer, causing it to violently explode and crippling its ability to fight. Its lumbering form tried to turn in time to face her, but she was far too fast, instead teleporting above its frame and landing on top of its main body.

There she unleashed the full magazine of the Invective at point blank range at one spot, putting a large dent in its frame. She followed up by throwing three more fusion grenades into it, before leaping up. The three grenades detonated in her wake, blasting a large hole in the top of the Hydra's body.

With the grace and accuracy of a master gymnast, she fell through the recently made hole, landing inside the heart of the machine. From the outside, the Hydra appeared to freeze for a moment, before shaking violently. As it shook itself to pieces, golden light started to leak from within its chassis.

Before long, it too detonated in a bright blaze of blinding light, leaving in its wake the Warlock standing at ground zero, perfectly content to rest in the inferno she had created.

With all three Axis Minds dead, the Vanguard had no problem wiping out the remnants of the Vex army. With their leadership eliminated they became simple drones that posed little real threat to them.

* * *

 **In the Halls Of Olympus**

"So…what do we do about the Big Prophecy?"

"It has to be discarded," Hades answered.

"We can't just ignore it, it can still happen. It's still a danger." Zeus argued.

"The children of the Big Three could still become a threat, one we cannot ignore." Athena agreed

"We don't even know if the kids are still going to be a threat considering all that brought up with these visions." Poseidon denied

"Then there's the fact that over 2 million other prophecies invalidate the big one altogether, or speak of something else bringing about our ruin." Apollo chimed in

"In fact, many tell of our offspring being our salvation." Hades pointed out.

"…and a lot of them mention their horrible deaths." Apollo reluctantly noted.

Hades spared Apollo a glance, but otherwise showed little reaction to it. He knew it was coming, he had found many of those prophecies of which Apollo spoke himself.

The others were less prepared.

"…What do you mean, their horrible deaths?" Zeus said carefully and slowly, staring intently at Apollo

"W-well, I mean, it's j-just that a lot of prophecies mentioned the gruesome demise of various demigods. Some in vain, others as martyrs." He stuttered, intimidated by the focus of Zeus upon him.

"He speaks true, my brother." Hades interrupted. "Not just our children, but all children of Olympus, demigod or not."

"Are you trying to tell me that not only are the demigods _not_ our greatest threat after all, but that they are in danger?" Zeus questioned,

"…Apollo?" Hades said, turning to the sun god in question

"'…And the Daughter of the Sky will be consumed by the heart of the Machine God, harvested and harnessed for her power in the name of the House of Kings."' Apollo recited reluctantly, reading off of his laptop.

Zeus scowled, his eyes crackling with bright blue power, his fist clenching by his side. Outside, they could hear the angry crack of thunder in the skies of Olympus.

"…lost to the screams of the Son's Will, the Ocean's progeny will be left to Her cruel machinations, beyond hope in an ancient underworld." He added.

"… _What?_ " Poseidon scowled, pulled into the web of dark despair that Apollo told.

"Are you saying that our children are going to die?" He growled.

"Well, no, it's just-" Apollo tried to explain.

"Hades seems conspicuously absent from this. Maybe he's involved? An ancient underworld certainly sounds like him?" Zeus accused.

"No, he's not-"

"He _does_ stand the most to gain from our demise." Athena pointed out.

"Bu-"

"Why would he come up here to face us if he would betray us?" questioned Aphrodite.

"Because he wanted to face us like a man?" Ares suggested

"He-"

"As much as I hate him, I don't think so little of him to think that my brother would ally himself with someone who sought to kill us all," Artemis argued

"Awe, thanks, sis-"

"You're right, that little shit is working with Hades. We should kill'em both." Ares realized.

"Oh no-"

"You make a good point, Ares" Zeus agreed,

"Apollo." Hades interrupted, his voice cutting through the room of cluttered voices like light through the fog. "Just tell them."

In the empty silence, Apollo looked nervously at Hades, "Are you…sure?"

Hades clenched his fist, but let his face remain stone. "Yes."

"Tell us what?" Poseidon demanded, joining Zeus in the middle of the floor.

Apollo spared another glance at Hades, before clearing his throat, scrolling through his laptop, and beginning his tale.

"And so he shall Take. Even the horrors of the Underworld will quail before the monstrosities of His armies. He shall Take all in the land beneath, claiming the very dead as his own, all in the name of the insatiable Worm Gods. The God of the dead shall lose all he has to the King of the Hive, to the Father of the living death, to the consumer of stars and the servant of the Darkness."

"The blood of his wife will feed their unending hunger. The rage of his children will crumble under the weight of their might. The hidden Daughter shall be forced into the unstoppable truth of the Sword, while the flesh of the Hidden son will become filled with the dead light of cold stars."

"All the while, the broken father, brother, and son shall be forced to kneel before the timeless might of Oryx, the Taken King." Apollo finished in a grim tone, "And it shall only be the first step in reaping of the Darkness, as it consumes one more world among millions."

And with his final word, there was naught but pained silence in the room. Hades, not willing to let himself react to hearing the tale of how he would lose everything precious to him, and the others, allowing the horrifying, yet mystifying thoughts of what would happen to the god they had just suspected would betray them.

Even worse, Hades was one of the big three, someone with great power and a strong domain. Everyone would think twice before facing him, even the brash god of war Ares. Hades was proud and strong, he would never surrender to someone invading his lands. And yet, this vision foretold that he would be _broken_ by this Oryx. That all he held dear would be torn from him and ruined.

And it said it was only the first step in their complete destruction.

"M-maybe it's a trick-" Ares tried to suggest, shaken by the detailed revelation.

"Ares." Said Zeus, his voice brokering no argument, "Stop."

"So…that's your future?" Poseidon finally sighed.

Apollo groaned loudly whilst Hades let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Is there any way we can stop it from happening?" Athena considered, "Anything in the prophecy that gives us a way out?"

"None of you really get it, do you?" Apollo groaned, his laptop disappearing as he rubbed his face. "We shouldn't even be calling them prophecies, they don't actually tell us the future, they just talk about potentialities."

"I think it was pretty clear what their saying." Athena frowned, "We have to prepare for war."

"With what?" Apollo challenged.

"…" Athena remained pointedly silent at his word.

"But, I mean, it could still happen, right?" Aphrodite said, "Hades having his kingdom taken from him, this Oryx coming to kill all of us?"

"And those Guardians of Light." Ares brought up, "They'll be coming after us too."

"We don't know that." Apollo warned.

"But the prophecies said-" Artemis said

"Forget the prophecies!" Apollo argued.

"We can't forget the prophecies, it's the only thing we have to go on." Artemis countered.

"And we'll need them if we are to save my daughter from this 'Machine God'," Zeus added.

"No, we won't" Apollo said, exasperated.

"They've always given us guidance before. If we can figure out which are the right ones and which are the false ones, we'll know everything we need to in order to fight back against this threat." Athena suggested.

"That's not a bad plan." Zeus agreed, "But how do we separate truth from lies?"

"Maybe there's some kind of pattern? Perhaps certain prophecies link together like a big puzzle piece?" Hephaestus put forward.

"We already-" Apollo tried to explain, getting annoyed by his family's inability to understand.

"In the meantime, we should dig up everything about these "Worm Gods", there has to be something on them somewhere in the world." Poseidon

"We can look into their followers. If they're this powerful they must have a substantial following." Zeus agreed

"I'm suspicious of why we haven't heard of them, in that case." Athena considered "We also need to know when this should happen, what signs we should expect. These prophecies only tell us of the end so far, but not how it starts."

"STOP!" Apollo yelled, gathering the attention of all attending parties. Even Hades gave him a raised brow, though one in surprised appreciation, not irritation.

Apollo himself was frustrated and angry. He knew he should have seen this coming, but when one pours so much time and energy into something, it's easy to forget that not everyone else is necessarily on the same page as you. It didn't help that he often wasn't taken seriously, usually seen as being the fun god who gave them prophecies, but had no control over them.

And after centuries of being treated as the village idiot, he should have realized it would take them a while to take him seriously.

"You all _still_ don't understand what we're trying to tell you." He seethed,

"We've already done _all of that_!" He revealed.

"…It's true." Hades agreed, "As said before, we've spent years pouring over all of this with nothing but ourselves and our most trusted allies within our domains."

"You don't trust us?" Zeus challenged.

"With your flare for the dramatic, no." Hades simply denied, "Not with secrets anyway."

"We've found all those patterns, we've looked through all the ancient records, we've done everything we possibly could to find out anything about these visions, bar asking all of you for help." Apollo explained.

"And…?" Poseidon asked, waiting for their results.

"And we just told you everything we know." He answered.

"But…what did you find out about the Worm Gods?" Athena asked

"The only thing that remotely aligns with them is Lovecraft fiction." He replied, "It seems that might not be as fanciful as we once thought."

"So, what, we have to deal with Cthulhu?" Hermes joked.

"Yes." Apollo said, dead serious for once in his life, his sunglasses slipping and allowing his eyes filled with burning orange light to peek through.

The traveler god blinked at that, recoiling at the blunt answer.

"But you found a pattern in the Prophecies, right? Separating the fake ones from the real ones?" Aphrodite brought up, desperation leaking through her voice.

"Of course they did," Athena scoffed, "They just said they did."

Apollo let out a sharp and bitter bark of laughter at that, something that greatly disturbed his sister. It sounded…wrong…in him, to sound so bitter and serious. He was supposed to be the god of light, the…"fun one". To see him so serious and hard was…wrong.

"Oh, we found the patterns."

And with that, he snapped his fingers.

Instantly, columns upon columns of books appeared in the throne room of Olympus. Each stack stood towering over the gods, even in their true forms. Each book was absurdly thick, only comparable to some world dictionaries or encyclopedias. And there were hundreds of them, perhaps thousands.

"And here they are." He said with a bitter smile.

Hades sighed at this, pinching the bridge of his nose, as if he had seen this coming and simply hoped it did not come to this.

"Apollo, what is the meaning of this?" Zeus demanded, enraged that Apollo would desecrate such an important place.

"This is a collection of all the 'puzzles' we were able to put together." He explained.

"Ah, so we have our proper prophecy after all." Athena smiled

"No"

She blinked, "What?"

"Each and every book represents a different collection of prophecies and visons that we could see fit together. Each book is that "true prophecy" you were looking for." Apollo elaborated. "And each book has a different one."

"Wait, that doesn't make sense, there should only be one true prophecy," Aphrodite complained, tilting her head in confusion.

"Exactly." Hades rumbled.

"But that's impossible," Zeus muttered.

"Have you not been listening?" Apollo raged

"THERE IS NO TRUE PROPHECY!" He exclaimed, trying to bury the point into their thick skulls.

Even Zeus recoiled at this, not used to seeing such aggression in the normally quite mellow and relaxed god.

"Throw out every concept of fate you had before, because it's gone. _Nothing_ is set in stone anymore." He explained.

"But there has to be something-" Artemis tried to argue with her brother.

"No, there isn't. All we have are possibilities. There are no less than 2,000 prophecies that say that the apocalypse starts tomorrow. Over 20,000 said it should have already started by now." He said as an example, "Hell, about 1,000 say Zeus should be dead by now."

"And there are over 150 million others that are just as 'true' as can be."

"I couldn't even get all of them in here, there's only 7 million in the room right now." He pointed out.

"But that's impossible, there has to be _something_." Poseidon tried to convince him.

"There isn't," Hades said in an absolute tone.

"Look, I get it. For eons, we've been guided by prophecies. It's engrained into everything we've lived through that they dictate the future. We live by them, fear them, practically worship them." Apollo began to sympathize. "I mean, hell, I'm the god of prophecies. This is kind of my whole shtick."

"But," he began in serious tone again, his burning eyes looking into those of all the gods and goddesses before him, "It's not anymore."

"Something has happened, and it's changed everything. There's nothing we can do about it, but accept that fate has been destroyed, and move on from there." He finished.

"Then what would you have us do, hmm?" Zeus challenged, "We can't ignore what you've told us, but you're also telling us that there's no way to know what will happen with them."

"I'd do what the mortals do."

"…What?" Zeus scoffed in disbelief, "Mortals? What do they have to do with this."

"They don't have prophecies running their lives. Not anymore, anyways. Sure, they look at the future and make predictions, but they don't have anything set in stone telling them about some inescapable future. At least, not anything they take as seriously as our prophecies." He explained. "Instead, they do the best with what they have."

"I actually like that idea," Ares admitted.

"Same…surprisingly," Hermes confessed.

"You don't have to like the idea, it's all we have." Apollo frowned. "Sure, you could try to follow a 'true prophecy'. I won't stop you."

"You won't?" Artemis skeptically questioned.

"No," He shrugged.

Stepping to the side, he gestured to the towers of books around the room, "Go ahead, _pick one_." He said, his voice laced with venom.

Artemis cringed as she saw his point.

Zeus sighed loudly, rubbing sweat off his face as he processed what he was being told, "I see your point"

"So…what? We just take this as helpful advice and nothing more?" Athena challenged.

"Well, if it helps, Oryx and the Darkness is never really mentioned in a good light." Apollo conceded sarcastically with a mean grin.

Athena glared at him, but otherwise held her piece.

"So…what do we do?" Zeus muttered, opening up the floor for suggestions.

"Hope for the best and prepare for the worst." Hades said simply, "It's really all we can do."

"What about the titan's? And the old Prophecy? Is that not still an issue?" Zeus asked.

"It's all thrown out of whack with whatever caused the change. Can it still happen? Sure. Is it _likely_ to happen? No." Apollo answered, "Technically nothing could happen and everything goes according to the original prophecy."

"But I'd rather not take that risk."

"Point taken" Zeus sighed, the weight of what was happening finally settling upon his shoulders

"I still think we should consider them present, however. Just…don't expect things to go according to plan." Hades warned. "I doubt whatever threat we were supposed to face has simply disappeared."

"Yes, that, I can understand," Zeus said, turning around and walking back to his throne.

He dropped upon it wearily, curling up a fist underneath his chin as he thought.

"But what do we do about the new enemies at our gates?"

* * *

 **The Black Garden**

"So," Cayde began, "What do you think's behind door number 1?"

"Sol Progeny, obviously," Ikora remarked.

"Would they have constructed them yet?" Zavala asked

"That...is actually a good question," Ikora admitted, taken off guard.

"Well, whatever it is, it has to be vulnerable considering all the work the Vex went to protect it." Cayde pointed out.

"Agreed. We can't let them regroup, we have to strike while we still have the advantage of momentum." Zavala added.

"Well then," Ikora said, getting up and pumping her trusty Invective, "Let's be off"

And with that, she released the key to the Black Heart. The blue rectangular prism floated up into the air, before intercepting the data beam heading toward the gate. The Key fractured into several different pieces, each fragment reflecting the beam to another piece, before they all converged back on the center of the Gate. There was a loud, audible, _Click_ , before the panels in the round Gate began to sink in and reveal themselves.

The panels swiveled out of the way, allowing the Vanguard full access to the heart of the Black Garden. Stepping through the gateway, the looked down into the courtyard below them. Much like the rest of the Black Garden, there was smooth rock and ruins covered in green overgrowth, with pieces of the bronze Vex skeletal underwork peeking out here and there.

Many structures stood out in a symmetrical semi-circular pattern aimed at the Black Heart, almost as if this was some kind of roman amphitheater, with the Black Heart as the main act.

The Black Heart itself was as unnerving as reports indicated. It was a strange, formless, undulating, mass of dark matter that hovered between a two-pronged rounded structure rising. It was something that seemed to defy logic, not adhering to the laws of the natural world. Simply being in its presence, the Guardians could feel the incredible waves of darkness flowing off of it. But they could feel something else.

"It's afraid..." Ikora noted curiously

This thing was afraid of them. It shuddered in their presence. They already knew this, from the reports of the fire team that originally killed the Black Heart, as well as the investigation that Ikora's Hidden had done on it. But even still, it was strange to see something of the darkness exhibit…fear. Out of all the servants of the darkness, save the gods of the hive and vex, this being had the most amount of actual Darkness about it. And yet, despite that, it was scared of them.

"I'd be scared too. All it's got between him and us are some Hydras, minotuars, and other vex." Cayde pointed out, surveying the terrain. The ground beneath was filled with Vex standing there, starring up at them expectantly with their burning red eyes. Vex of all types were there, even Hydras, though not the massive Axis Minds as seen before. Back behind all of them stood the towering forms of the Sol Progeny. They were still nothing more than statues, but there was little doubt they wouldn't stay that way.

"This is nothing compared to what we had to fight coming in here."

"All the same, something with that much Darkness should have little reason to fear us." Ikora pointed out.

"Then let's give it a reason," Utterted Zavala

* * *

 **In the Halls of Olympus**

"So we're agreed then?" Apollo began

"We're dissolving the pact."

"Since we can no longer take the Prophecy as an absolute, there is little reason for us to act paranoid about our own children. Especially when it is quite clear that we will be facing an external threat." Hade summed up.

Zeus grumbled in thought, not liking the idea of going back on the fundamental thing that ran many of the decisions he made over the course of the last half century. He wasn't proud of all of them, but he stood firm in those decisions. He had, he thought, done the best he could.

"And look at it this way." Poseidon began, "This way we don't have to go around killing kids."

And with that, he delivered a pointed glare towards his brother of the sky.

Zeus allowed his face to cringe for a moment, reminded of the other moments. The flights of fancy, the dalliances, and the mistakes he had made. He had tried to ignore them, but, well…with the way things were turning out these days, it was clear that that wasn't an option.

"I…suppose there isn't much reason for the Pact to remain in the light of these things, is there?" Athena considered.

"Sides, the more tough little stinkers we got out there running around, the better off we'll be when this "Oryx" shows his ugly face." Ares pointed out.

"As crude as he is…He has a point." Athena admitted reluctantly.

They continued to speak, talking of the pros, and few cons, they had for the repeal of the Pact. All in all, everyone seemed to be slowly around to the idea of its invalidation. And yet, all the while, no one noticed Hera in the room, her mood growing more and more fowl. She did her best to remain calm, to keep up that perfect image she so desired, but there's only so much even a god can take before they lose it all.

"Fine." Zeus finally said with a sigh.

Raising his hand, he pledged, "On the River Styx, I rescind the Pact."

Matching him, the rest of raised their hands and recited his pledge.

When the final word was spoken, a clap of thunder echoed through the room, signaling its effect.

"Well…I guess that's that." Zeus sighed.

"So…I suppose I should say, 'Go forth and be fruitful.'" He added with a dry laugh.

"From the sound of things, you already have." Ares grinned.

"And what, exactly, is that supposed to mean?" Zeus frowned.

"We all heard what they said. Apollo talked about visions mentioning your kids." Hermes pointed out, gesturing towards the big three.

"It did, didn't it?" Athena pondered with a curious look in her eye.

"What are you trying to say?" Zeus questioned.

"It's pretty obvious you broke the Pact, Zeus." Hephaestus sighed.

"Wha-I-" He sputtered, caught in a lie,

"They broke it too!" He finally said, pointing at his brother standing across from him. "You all heard it, they talked about the children of Hades and Poseidon as well."

"Actually…" Hades began calmly.

"I had my kids back _before_ the Pact happened." He countered.

"Then you _oh so kindly_ decided to kill their mother." He glared icily.

Zeus flinched at the cold, murderous, look in his brother's eye. Hades, while known for his anger, didn't show it how most people assumed he did. If there was one phrase he lived by, it was that "Revenge is a dish best served cold".

"Well, it also mentioned Posi-" Zeus began, trying to shift blame.

"Nope." Poseidon interrupted with a raised hand.

"…What?" Zeus blinked.

"Yes, I've met a girl, _but_ I haven't had sex with her yet." He explained

"Why not?" Zeus said in a mystified tone.

"Well, _I_ like to get to know a girl before I fuck her, unlike _you_ who will fuck anything that moves," Poseidon said with a crude jibe.

"Except his wife." Hades chimed in with a dead tone, eliciting a roar of laughter out of the god of the sea.

The other gods in attendance where at an awkward impasse. They wanted to laugh at the cutting insult, but they didn't want to invoke the wrath of the King of the gods, even if it was true.

Zeus, for his part, just sighed, his face blushing brightly as he covered his face with his hand in embarrassment. They had gotten him good, and he knew he was in too deep to dig his way out of it.

Still, seeing all these people making light of something so serious was the final straw for one of them.

"Do you have nothing to say?" Hera seethed.

Zeus looked up, surprised to see his wife glaring at him, her face alight with rage.

"Hera, I-"

"These people mock our marriage, and you have nothing to say?"

"I…" He trailed off, really not knowing what to do.

"It's because it's true, isn't it?" She began, tears welling up in her eyes.

"After all these centuries I'm still the laughing stock of the gods. 'Goddess of Marriage can't even keep her own together." She cried, her fist clenched tightly.

"And the rest of you!" She screamed, staring down every other god in the room, "You would so easily discard your vows?"

"Hera, it's not that simple." Athena tried to explain, "In this time of need we require every asset to ensure our survival."

"So you're all willing to just throw away the sacred commitments you made in the name of _survival?_ " She exclaimed.

Silence.

All she received from the room was silence.

For some, it was in shame, for others steadfast commitment to what they had said.

"WELL?" She roared.

And yet still, none could, or would, answer her.

"Very well." She sniffed, getting up off her throne, "I see I will not sway you."

"But I will not be party to your conspiracy of hedonism and infidelity." She declared, walking out of the room.

"Hera, wai-" Zeus began, but it was too late.

In a bright flash of light, she was gone.

He visibly deflated, feeling that, for all that he could enjoy the presence of his daughter now without fear of her assassination, he had still lost.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of sandal upon stone. Looking up, he saw the young Moon goddess out of her throne.

"I, for one, remember my vows. I shall not whore myself out for something as paltry as saving myself. If I die, I shall die honorably, not like a coward desperately trying to run from my fate." She proudly stated.

And with that, she too vanished from the room. In her absence, the once great feeling of hope they had was lessened. Things felt more…hollow…now.

But then…the gods were used to hollow victories, after all.

* * *

 **The Black Garden**

Ruin.

The once beautiful plaza of the Black Heart covered in molten slag, exposed skeletal metal, and fallen structures.

Death.

Once filled with life, the green in the garden was turned to ash, a fallout of the intense heat and fury of the fight.

And standing above all of this, were the three who caused this. The three intruders who penetrated the Black Garden and desecrated this once beautiful sanctuary.

All in the name of their dead god.

"We've done it." Ikora said, a touch of wonder in her voice.

"Of course we did, we're the Vanguard." Cayde scoffed confidently.

"This is only the first step in our revolution of Light. Don't get cocky, we still have a long way to go." Zavala cautioned.

"I still feel like it's time to celebrate." Cayde countered.

"He has a point, Zavala. We completed a major objective." Ikora added.

The titan gave a heavy sigh, evident even through his armored body. "I suppose you have a point."

"Capturing the Black Heart was no easy feat."

Before them, in the prongs that once gave it a comforting home, was the undulating mass of black matter. It stayed there, restrained by a white field enveloping it. The field was emitted by 4 heavily modified transmat beacons placed around it by Cayde and Ikora.

"I have to admit, Cayde, coming up with the idea to use transmat technology to prevent enemy teleportation was quite inspired," Ikora confessed in an impressed tone.

"Yeah, well, you were the one who actually got the crazy idea to actually work." Cayde pointed out.

"And, of course, Zavala was the one crazy enough to suggest such a thing."

"The Last time the Black Heart got away. It ran. That means it fears us. It means we can hurt it." Zavala began, "This time we won't let it get away. We'll squeeze every out of information out of it we can. We'll use it to make sure we're truly ready for the darkness."

"Then, and only then, will I allow it to die." He declared.

It was then that they heard it. That they _felt_ it. That feeling of time shifting ever so slightly. Of everything being ever so _off_. That feeling of something cold and dark reaching out and trying to snuff you out. They spun around, weapons at the ready, and came face to face with…

A cube.

But not just any cube. This was a cube born of blinding, pixilated light. Lines shot out of it into the fabric of the world around them. It was like something from behind the curtain of space time was peeking out, like they were taking a peak at the coding behind reality itself.

Then it spoke

" _Greetings_ **Guardians** " It said, its speech pattern broken and disjointed. But most distressingly of all, _human_.

"…What are you?" Ikora finally asked, her Invective pointed at it.

They knew what it was, on a certain level, of course. It was an Oracle. A being of the Vault of Glass that determined what belonged in the Vex existence and what didn't. But why was it _here_. And why was it talking?

"We, **are** Atheon." It announced.

"…Atheon?" Cayde whispered, confused.

"What do you want?" Zavala demanded.

"…We wish **to** _talk_ **with** _ **you**_ **. We** _want_ to congratulate **on** _ **your**_ _ **VICTORY**_." It said.

It was here that they could put on finger on what was so disturbing about its speech. It sound not as if it was speaking itself, but as if it was combining together different sound bites of different words to string along an imitation of speech.

But where had it gotten the sound bites?

"How are you talking?" Ikora asked.

"We speak **through** _the_ **voices** of _**the**_ dead." It answered.

The three of them gave each other a glance, unnerved by the implications of its stolen words.

"Why?" Cayde asked, "You haven't exactly been chatty before."

" **You** _have_ **done** _a_ great _**deed**_ , **restraining** _the_ **Dark** _**Heart**_ and _freeing_ **us** _from_ _**its**_ hold." It explained.

"So…you're not aligned with the Dark Heart?" Ikora asked

"The **Dark** Heart _**represents**_ a _complacency_ **within** us.  When _we_ **saw** _that_ the _**Taken**_ **would** **consume** _**us**_ , _it_ _persuaded_ us **there** _was_ **no** _escape_." It answered.

" _ **We**_ **disagreed**."

"So you would rather do what?" Cayde asked.

" _We_ **would** find _a_ **solution**. _If_ **no** **solution** could _be_ _**found**_ , **we** _would_ create _**one**_."

" _And_ _**we**_ **did**."

"Sending us back in time, that was your solution?" Zavala guessed.

" _ **Yes**_. _The_ **Beings** of _Light_ _**are**_ **unknown** to  us. **You** _are_ _unpredictable_ **and** **shielded** _from_ _our_ _**predictions**_.  We **can** _make_ _statistical_ _**likelihoods**_ , _but_ **nothing** **is** _certain_ about **you**."

" **So** _**in**_ the **end** , _we_ decided _**an**_ _uncertain_ **future** is _preferable_ **to** _a_ **_doomed one_**." It confessed.

"…understandable…" Zavala slowly admitted.

"So is this the part where you kill us all?" Cayde half-joked.

" _ **No**_ " It boomed.

" _The_ **Taken** _**King**_ and _his_ **armies** _still_ _**lie**_ **in** wait _out_ _in_ _the_ **great** **black**. _**When**_ they _come_ , our **predictions** _still_ say _**we**_ _shall_ **be** _**Taken**_. **There** is _**nothing**_ _we_ _can_ do **about** **it**. _But_ _**you**_ _can_." It explained.

" **Until** _such_ time _the_ _**threat**_ **of** _the_ _**Taken**_ is **eliminated** , _we_ shall _allow_ _**you**_ _to_ _**continue**_ on _with_ **your** **existence**. _We_ only  wish **to** _**become**_ **one** _with_ all, **while** _your_ imperfect **existence** _endangers_ **that** , _it_ gives **us** _the_ _**freedom**_ _to_ break _free_ **of** our _**limitations**_."

"You may _keep_ **Mars** , _but_ leave _**Venus**_ _to_ **us**."

"So…don't fuck with us, we won't fuck with you." Cayde summarized.

"… _ **Yes**_." It agreed.

"And why shouldn't we just kill you again?' Zavala challenged.

" _As_ **you** have _**seen**_ , **destroying** _us_ is _more_ **difficult** _than_ you  thought. _In_ _addition_ , _**we**_ **can** _assist_ you **when** _the_ time _**comes**_."

"…It has a point." Ikora reasoned reluctantly.

" **And** _if_ that _is_ not **enough** …" It began. " _ **We**_ understand _that_ _you_ **have** a _**desire**_ _for_ certain **things**."

And as it spoke, several more rings of pixilated light appeared around it.

"Certain **things** _**we**_ _can_ _**provide**_."

* * *

 _A/n:_

 _I was originally going to have Black Garden thing include the fight with the Black Heart, but I decided not to because, first, I didn't want to drag this out too much more. It was already long enough. There also wasn't anything too special that was going to be happening in the second fight. The real fight was with the army and the 3 strike bosses in the canyon. The Black Heart fight would have been pretty curb stompy by comparison._

 _Finally, I didn't want to show all of my cards too soon. The only one who really did was Cayde, but he always has an ace up his sleeve._

 _As for the weapons I gave them, I've decided that they'll basically have access to the entire Vanguard inventory of gear. Weapons, ships, etc. now, technically I'll be cherry-picking the best items, in my opinion, as well as giving other items they should have to mix up their inventory, but as a rule, just assume that they have every bit of Vanguard gear you can get. As for their exotics, the first two were easy. The Ace of Spades is a great gun and an obvious fit for Cayde, especially since in the grimoire with it Cayde's the one who requests it from Banshee-44. The Invective was also easy since, well, it's Ikora's. It was her gun long before it was yours. Zavala's weapon was harder. Then I remembered that the Gjallarhorn was made after the Battle of Twilight Gap and given to its heroes, heroes like Zavala. Other exotics will come later, but I'm still working on a good, well balanced, list that doesn't just give them all of the most broken and op shit in the game._

 _Also, I didn't intend for the stuff in Olympus to take so long. It's about 2-3 times longer than I intended, and far more emotional. I initially just wanted them to more or less say, "We're repealing the Pact", do that, then end. As you can see, that didn't happen._

 _And yes, the Pact has been repealed. It's one of the many ways we're taking a hard turn from canon. Because of this, some things are going to change. Namely, Bianca and Nico don't need to hide out in Hotel California anymore, as for what actually going to happen to them, that's a little more up in the air, but either way they aren't the central focus of the story. Neither is Thalia, who should be more fine now, or, you guessed it, Percy._

 _Who isn't even born yet._

 _I've offset everything in the recent period by about four years. Percy was supposed to be born in 1993, but now it's probably going to be more like 1997. Thalia's also been offset, as have everyone else who it would really keep around the same age. Thalia's been born, but she's not going to get turned into a tree or whatever, meaning she'll be significantly older than Percy and friends._

 _Also, Percy is another issue. Not even sure if he's going to be a guy, as indicated by the vagueness of the kid's gender. It's probably going to be a guy, but I'm not opposed to making Percy a girl. As of yet, it doesn't really matter. Nothing really hinges on his/her gender, but at the same time, I don't really have a reason to make him a girl. Not yet, anyway. If one of you guys can give me a good solid reason to make Percy a girl, then I'll probably do it. Otherwise, he's keeping that dick._

 _And the god's are preparing for war too. In their own special way. Which means, you guessed it, making child soldiers._

 _Jesus, the more I look into and think about the gods in_ _Riordan's_ _universe, and in general, the more fucked up I realize they are._

 _As for the little visions Apollo mentioned regarding kids getting fucked up? Those are more or less far off idea's I've had that have no tie to the actual story yet. By which I mean: I've come up for a scenario where Hades has his world taken from him by Oryx. I just don't haven a reason why, or a way to get there yet. Probably not even going to happen._

 _And Oryx himself is another issue. At first, I was going to say Oryx was going to be a super god compared to the rest of them, but then I realized how big the disparity actually should be, given how Riordan's own universe rules. The gods get their power from their worshippers and believers, right? Well so does Oryx, sort of. His entire empire is a giant pyramid scheme, with him near the top. Pretty sure only the Worm Gods are above him. Each being in the Hive goes out and takes...Souls..or something, from their conquests, at which point they give a portion of it as a tithe to their superior, so on and so on, till it gets to Oryx._

 _And Oryx is the king of an intergalactic empire. He probably has thousands of worlds under his command. Bare minimum, he has more than the gods, which isn't even one._

 _So by their own logic, Oryx is probably several hundred, if not thousand, times more powerful than them._

 _So he could probably shit stomp all over them by himself._

 _On another note, Atheon. Yes, I've decided for the purposes of this story, he's not going to be trying to kill them all. Even a little helpful, in the "The enemy of my enemy is my ally, until that enemy is dead, then I'm coming for you." Kind of way. Depending on your interpretation, I'm breaking canon with that. But, eh. I need to take liberties for this thing to even happen. It's not even like Atheon's going to actively help them with the gods or any of the shit on earth, he's just going to mind his own buisness on Venus._

 _And finally, I've gotten this question a few times, "Will the Vanguard be making more guardians?"_

 _The Vanguard will not be creating a device, method, machine, etc, that allows them to turn people into Guardians. To make a guardian, you need a ghost or the Traveler. They only have three ghosts and the Traveler isn't there yet._

 _Instead, they'll be doing a somewhat X-com approach and upgrading teams of elite soldiers with weapons and gear need to give them a chance against the mystical threats around them. I already know what I'm going to be doing for that, and it's not to have everyone running around with Gjallarhorn in Titan armor slinging around supers._

 _That ain't happening._

 _In any case, this is all for today. Hopefully, I'll have the final chapter out by the end of the month, but my schedule's become a bit packed, so that might not be feasible._


	4. Chapter 4: Ripples

**:**

 **\\_\\_/_/**

 **\\_\/_/**

 **\ _ /**

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 **Vanguard**

 **Chapter 4:**

 **Ripples**

 _A/n:_

 _Well..._

 _That took longer than expected._

 _But hey, I'm back, and I'm not dead._

 _Yay_

* * *

"You want to what?!"

"Zavala, relax." Cayde backed off, holding his hands up as he tried to get his comrade in arms to calm down.

It wasn't working.

"You want me to give up?! To let this all fall apart?!" the armored Awoken questioned furiously.

"Nothing so bold, Zavala, we simply think it would be best if you…took some personal time." Ikora said, acting as the voice of reason.

"You want me to take a _**vacation**_." The man spat so caustically that his companions almost felt as if they'd been assaulted with it.

Never before had the "vacation" been used with such raw hate.

"I think at that point it'd be more like a sabbatical." Cayde…helpfully…pointed out.

An action that earned him the burning and withering glare of one of the Heroes of Twilight Gap.

"Zavala," Ikora began, taking a different route. "When was the last time you took any time off?"

"Two weeks ago on a Thursday." He shot off immediately

"Exact-wait, really?" Cayde stumbled, surprised it had been so recent.

"Yes." Zavala nodded. "I stopped for a half an hour to read part of a book and enjoy a small meal."

"…but you don't need to eat?" The Exo said incredulously.

"I enjoy the ritual of dinning." Zavala calmly responded.

"You do?"

"Indeed, I take pleasure in the activity once a month."

"Once a…"Cayde trialed off, not being able to imagine only taking one hour of personal time a month.

"…Are you _sure_ you're not the robot?"

"Cayde." Ikora chastised.

"I'm not going to waste my time on trivial matters when there's work to be done." Zavala frowned.

"What the hell have you been doing with your time that you can only spare an hour a month?" Cayde wondered.

"Scouting." The Veteran said simply.

"…Scouting?" he repeated skeptically.

"Yes, I've been scouting the terrain of the planet, seeing what areas the Vex are centered around and geological differences from our own Martian maps." Zavala explained.

"That's…actually not a bad idea." Ikora admitted.

"Ikora…" the Hunter said with a sharp look

"I'm still with you Cayde, but I will admit that we have certain responsibilities that we can't ignore." She placated.

"But" She interjected,

"Zavala…when was the last time you took more than a day off?" She asked seriously.

Zavala was about to answer, but paused, considering the question. He began to rub his chin in thought as he searched his mind for the answer.

"I…can't recall…" He admitted, "At least a century or two ago, probably further."

His fellow Vanguard both sighed loudly, each one exasperated by the both the admirable dedication, and workaholic nature they had come to expect from their comrade.

"This is why we want you to take a break." The Gunslinger explained

"I don't have time to waste on something like that." Zavala scowled.

"Actually." Ikora corrected him, "We do."

"Since we're in the past, we're mostly playing the long game. There isn't anything we have to do _right this second_. We still have a minimum of around two and a half decades before the Traveler arrives." She pointed out.

"And even then, we have about 600 years or so before the Darkness is supposed to come." Cayde added.

"We have more than enough time to relax and recollect ourselves." She continued.

"What about progress with the Ishtar Collective? We still have work to do on that." He pointed out.

"Nothing you would really be able to help with." Ikora pointed out, "We're ironing out the details of the treatment plan we currently have. It's actually about to go through official channels to get government approval."

"So the cure for cancer is about to hit the market?" Cayde asked.

"It's not a blanket cure, not yet. That'd be a bit _too_ incredible of a jump. Instead it's a mostly effective treatment method that will all but eliminate the need for Chemotherapy." She explained. "The end goal, however, would prevent Cancer from even developing in the first place."

"But we're a long way away from that."

"Huh," Cayde nodded, "Neat"

"Suffice to say, Zavala, you wouldn't actually be much help working with that." Ikora said with a sympathetic smile.

But Zavala wasn't a man to give up without a fight, or without checking all his bases, "What about security?"

Ikora frowned at the comment. "Security is…not terribly much of an issue at the moment. Right now, we're nobodies. Most of the bigger companies don't honestly believe what we're making can pan out, in part because we haven't been trying to sell it to them. They think we're just a bunch of upstarts that might have a fancy trick or two, but that's it."

"I doubt they even think it'll work. They're probably just waiting for the right people to give it their seal of approval, _then_ they'll move in and try to buy it from you." Cayde pointed out, "That way, if it's a bust, they don't lose anything."

"They can try to buy me out all they want, we all know I won't be selling it to anyone." She asserted easily, as if the hungry sharks of the corporate world were nothing more than desperate dregs clawing out in greed.

"And if they don't take no as an answer?" Cayde asked.

"We've had to deal with the politics of the City's council. I doubt that they can be much worse." She scoffed.

"I think you're underestimating them." Zavala frowned

"And I think you're overlooking the fact that they're more sharks in the water now. There's a whole world out there, not just one city." Cayde added.

"Irrelevant." Ikora dismissed, "If they send spies, I know how to deal with spies. If they try to use blackmail, I know how to handle that too."

"I created the hidden, I know how to deal with this." She stated firmly, brokering no room for argument.

Seeing her resolve on this matter, Zavala repressed a sigh, while Cayde let his be heard, but they both decided to drop it.

"What about the plan for the PMC?" Zavala brought up.

Part of their grand plan involved making a small mercenary group using severely downgraded Golden Age tech. It would still be a few decades ahead of current technology, perhaps more, but it be considered bottom of the barrel equipment in their own time, if that. There were several reasons for this.

Convincing the world militaries that their new and unused technologies were worth the price of change would be hard, and it would take time. Sure, give them a better tank, and they would jump all over themselves to get it. But give them something that pulled away from current military convention, such low level Artificial Intelligences, gravimetric sensors, and even dumbed down Nano-machines, and they'll be skeptical about its usefulness. A way to convince them would be to show them an effective military force putting them to good use.

It would also give them a certain level of control over it. Instead of just making the equipment and giving them out to other people to use, they would actually have a force of their own to make use of it. A force that they would be able to use in…unconventional ventures.

Cayde's discoveries of a "magical world" were a surprise, but also dangerous. Many of the things found there were things that the planet's current militaries were ill prepared to deal with.

The Vanguard wasn't going to go looking for a fight, but they wanted to be able to effectively protect humanity should the need arise.

"That isn't going to be feasible for at least a year, likely two." Ikora answered.

"And I doubt it's going to be needed immediately either." Cayde spoke up. "Right now things on the other side of things are relatively peaceful."

"While I do have a sneaking suspicion big things are happening, nobody is screaming for war right now. Gearing up for war? Maybe." He conceded, "But the word on the street is that things are good for now."

"Gearing up for war?" Zavala repeated, focusing on that.

Cayde sighed again, knowing they would pick that up. "Ok, call it a gut feeling, but while things are peaceful _now_ , there's definitely a "calm before the storm" feeling going around."

"Don't know what the storm _is_ , but given the signs I'd bet we have, at _minimum_ , 10 years before anything really major even _begins_ to happen." He explained.

"Five years." Ikora muttered "That'd give us enough time to set up a solid financial base and report, as well as letting us begin work on some of the more exotic projects."

"That sounds like all the more reason for me to keep working." The Awoken pointed out.

"No." Cayde said, pointing his finger firmly at the man, "You are _not_ weaseling yourself out of this one."

"We don't want you to take a 10 year break, Zavala." Ikora said wryly

"And I said 10 years before things even _start_ to get interesting. There'd be nothing for you to do in the meantime." The Exo added.

Zavala was…displeased by this, evident by his creased brow and the angry light dancing in his eyes. Unfortunately, he could also see what they were saying. Much as he didn't like it, they _did_ have a point.

"…How long would this break be?" He asked tentatively

The pair looked at each other, before the woman said, "Five years"

The commander's fist clenched tightly, "One."

"Four years, and you have to actually have fun."

" **One** "

"Three years, you have to have fun, and you have talk to people"

" **ONE** "

They took one final glance at each other, before offering their final proposal.

"Two years." Ikora said.

"But you have to have a civilian hobby." Cayde added.

Zavala snarled, the thought of leaving the field for so long, for spending so much time doing…nothing…grating on his every nerves.

Seeing this, Ikora elbowed Cayde in the chest. Not that it actually _hurt_ , but it sent the message she needed.

"…and I promise not to make you the center of anymore of my jokes for the next decade." Cayde groaned.

"Done." Zavala agreed without hesitation.

A decade of being free from Cayde's jokes was easily the best present he'd ever gotten.

* * *

 _This…is not a good sign_

The woman wreathed in a silver cloak and black leather frowned as she kneeled down.

It resembled a lion, with a few minor, but significant differences. For one, its fur coat was more golden then brown, and actually had something resembling a metallic sheen. Second, its fangs were proportionally longer. Third, it was approximately three times the size of a normal adult lion.

And it was dead.

"My Lady," A voice started from behind her.

The woman turned, catching the eye of a younger girl behind her, approximately 16 in appearance.

"Zoe," the woman greeted briefly before turning back to the body in front of her, "Shouldn't you be with the rest of the girls?"

"…We were worried…" Zoe replied evasively.

"You mean curious." She corrected.

Zoe paused, carefully trying to pick her words and navigate through the minefield of her goddess.

"…We…are not ignorant, my Lady. You have trained us well." She began tentatively "Meaning it was readily apparent to all but the greenest of us what this was."

"And slaying a Nemean Lion is…quite the feat."

Artemis sighed, but nodded.

 _I suppose I can't blame them for being curious. They_ _are_ _young girls._ She acknowledged.

 _Still_

"There is a reason I told them to stay back." She frowned.

"With respect, My Lady, the signs are not fresh, at least two days old." Zoe pointed out.

"Hardly any time for a patient hunter." Artemis responded.

"I can handle myself." Zoe said, switching tracks.

"I know you can." Artemis sighed, looking into the eyes of the girl she considered her own

"You are a strong and capable huntress, Zoe, and I trust you." She admitted, placing a hand on the girl's shoulder.

While the girl held her face, the smallest twitch of her lips and the blush on her cheeks gave her away to the goddess.

"But that's also why I wanted you to look over the rest of the girls, because I trusted you to keep them safe." She elaborated.

The girl's face momentarily twitched into a frown, but Artemis caught it.

"But what about y-" She began

"I can take care of myself." Artemis interrupted her lieutenant with a smirk

"I am immortal, Zoe. You, are not." She pointed out.

Zoe appeared to remain calm and nod, taking her advice to heart without dwelling on it.

Artemis knew better.

Zoe was practically wilting, panicking internally about how she had embarrassed herself before her goddess. Acting like a foolish child instead of her goddess's most trusted lieutenant like she should have.

"My apologies, my Lady, I should have trusted you." She bowed.

It took effort for Artemis not to laugh at the girl. She wasn't mad at her. Annoyed, probably. Exasperated, most definitely.

"Well, since you're here…" Artemis sighed, the amusement dying down in her.

She gestured to the body of the Nemean Lion behind her. Instantly, Zoe's eyes went wide as she took in the scene.

They had gotten glimpses of it as they traveled near the site before their goddess had stopped them. Trees torn down, ripped up ground, gouges in the earth and bark. Debris and blood littered the area in copious and liberal amounts, something not uncommon in a fight with such a legendary monster.

But then there were the other marks.

Here and there, craters dotted the landscape. Holes burrowed into trees and dirt. Single slashes surrounded by burn marks.

It was obvious to the huntress's, a battle had gone on here. An epic fight worthy of stories and songs. And most notably of all, the Nemean was the creature dead, and not its hunter.

The Nemean Lion, a monster with an impenetrable hide.

Or at least it was.

Because as Zoe looked at the dead beast, she couldn't help but notice the innumerable holes riddling it's body. Most weren't too deep, only enough to draw blood, a scratch really. But others seemed to bore deep into its bodies, drawling out long lines of blood. It was even missing one of its eyes, the gelatinous ball little more than clumps of blood and nerve inside its socket.

But the most glaring wound on its whole body, was the massive hole on the top of its skull, towards the back.

On a closer look, it was an exit wound, not an entrance wound. She could see bits of blood, skull, and brain matter blasted out by whatever did this. Looking at the mouth of the lion to confirm her suspicions, she found what appeared to be a knife wound on its tongue.

Zoe couldn't help the shiver going down her spine as she connected the pieces, nor the flare of respect she felt for this warrior.

"…I Believe," Zoe began, "That whoever did this…"

As she spoke, she pulled out her own knife, imitating the scene.

"Began a protracted battle with the beast. To end it, they began by shooting the beast in the eye," She said, gesturing to the hole with her knife, "Stunning it."

"While the beast roared in rage and pain, they lept in, and used their knife as a wedge to force the beast's mouth open." She continued, place her knife on the wound. "They probably impaled the tongue with the knife as they forced the beast's mouth open"

"Then, somehow, they shot the roof of the beast's mouth, causing the projectile to penetrate their brain and fly out of the top of their skull."

"I'm just trying to figure out what they used to do it." She murmured, confused.

There wasn't enough room to move for it to be a bow, and it didn't look like any knife wound she had seen.

"Perhaps a crossbow?" She suggested

After a moment of thought, she nodded, "Probably some kind of hand-held crossbow."

"Likely fueled by powerful magics, or some kind of divine weapon. They probably took all the bolts they fired with them for reuse, or it shot some kind of immaterial or mystical bolts, like Zeus's bolts." She deduced.

"Good." Artemis's voice rang out, shaking Zoe from her analysis. "That's essentially what I gathered."

Zoe all but preened at the praise. She was, of course, confident in her own abilities. That didn't mean that she was numb to praise, however.

"Whatever weapon did this must have held either incredible power, or was selectively crafted to fight monsters of this nature." Artemis added. "It could be a crossbow, but it could also be some manner of spell craft."

"Either way, whoever did this must have been a powerful, and surely noble and wise warrior."

* * *

"Why are there so many of you?!" Cayde exclaimed, firing his hand cannon into the horde of monsters chasing after him.

"Give it back! GIVE IT BACK!" They roared at him in unison, a thousand voices chanting together in fury.

Beings that once resembled beautiful women now became twisted forms. Each one an unholy mix of some aquatic nightmare and the vestiges of a human woman. Gaping maws, scaled flesh, and pitch black eyes, they swarmed him. Hunting him down for the treasures he dared steal.

"You weren't using it anyway!" He shot back, sending a fresh light-infused round spinning toward each of their heads with unerring accuracy. Each one causing them to explode in a spark of bright firelight.

But despite this, the horde managed to enclose on him as he raced out of the dark dank tunnels in which they fought.

One got lucky, ambushing him at the next intersection of tunnels, and biting down on his arm.

"Owe! Dammit!" He said, crushing her skull in short order with a hard pistol whip.

Another managed to latch onto his leg. He kicked it in the chest stunning it, before slapping a trio objects that resembled trench maces onto its head, pulled from a burst of orange light, the spikes driving into its skull and holding it in place. With another sharp kick, and not wasting any time, he punted the injured creature into the horde racing down the tunnel. Just as she reached her many sisters, Cayde fired.

The trip mine exploded in a massive fireball, the massive force rocking the entire cave network. The tunnel before him collapsed, burying the horde that chased after him.

"Hah!" Cayde laughed in triumph, patting the jeweled box mag-locked to his belt happily.

His cheer was short lived as another roar echoed from a different tunnel of the intersection.

"Oh come on!" He groaned as his motion tracker lit up.

"GIVE IT BACK!" They chanted from all directions

"WHAT ARE YOU?!"

* * *

 _Why am I here?_

 _Oh, that's right_ Athena thought with a bitter taste, shutting a book with more force than was necessary.

 _It's because I'm easily bored and I had a bright idea._ She thought in self-depreciation as she wondered through the library at the University of California: San Diego.

After the great Winter Solstice meeting of the gods had all but fallen apart in fear, self-hatred, and tentative hope, they had once again gone their separate ways. For a few months, Athena had tried to parse through the various prophecies Apollo had given them, and try to find some kind of truth, some kind of pattern, inside them.

Unfortunately, it was exactly as fruitful as Apollo said it would be. Instead of finding anything concrete, all Athena found were trends. Trends that tended to conflict with each other, beyond the most general trend of "something's different".

It was maddening, to be frank. It's no wonder Apollo was so riled up. It was essentially his job to be able to figure these things out. He was the god of prophecies, after all. And yet, there was nothing to be done.

They didn't even have a solid timetable to work on. As he had said, many prophecys said they should all be dead by now. And most didn't actually say when they were all supposed to die, just that something would happen eventually that may or may not change everything.

So suffice to say, they were panicking.

 _We are not panicking_ She bristled, willing herself to remain calm. _We have everything in hand._

They had nothing in hand.

As much as they tried to deny it, even to themselves, all were shaken by the revelations at the meet. Those least affected were Hades and Apollo, purely because those two already knew what they were in for, they had been working on this for years.

Aries was probably the second least affected, in that he was spoiling for a fight rather than panicking on the inside.

 _But he's always been a hothead who's seen the battle before him, and not the desolation behind._ Athena frowned, her mood plummeting from its already sour disposition straight into a toxic mix of anger and suppressed terror.

And all this fear was due to something very simple.

The unknown.

They were all flying blind in more ways than one.

Namely, there was the fact that no longer could they rely on prophecies. Centuries, millennia even, of listening to prophecies, of their forefathers listening, of their entire _culture_ listening, all ended by this event. It was as if…there were no assurances the sun would rise tomorrow.

In reality, there wasn't.

A couple prophecies spoke of the sun dying in some way shape or form. Others, a light being snuffed out.

All this time, their judgments had always been tempered by what the prophecies spoke. While it may not have been something constantly guiding their hand and strong-arming their judgment, they were always considered. It gave them warnings of threats, of boons, of change. For good or for ill, they were always there. A constant.

And now they were gone.

Worse than gone, they were _fueling_ the fear.

If they had simply disappeared, that would have been one thing.

Instead, they were ranting on a million insane ravings that would make even the most paranoid person feel skeptical. It took all sense of certainty out of their life.

They weren't even sure if _something_ would happen. Too many spoke of specifically nothing happening, and life just continuing on as is. But at the same time, too many spoke of the apocalypse happening tomorrow to just ignore.

It was something that was stressing all of them out. Whether or not they chose to admit that, however, was a different story entirely.

Athena stopped, took a breath, and put the book back down on the shelf.

 _And this is why I'm actually here_ She admitted, _I need some stress relief before I end up turning a city into spiders or something._

Walking through the aisles she huffed, browsing through the sections, looking for something to catch her eye. She was wearing a mundane disguise, obviously, lest she draw undue attention to herself from all the mortal's exploding and bleeding from their eyes.

She was actually playing a teacher at the moment, educating students on sanitized ancient history, fit for mortal ears. She'd play this for a while, maybe a decade, maybe less, before moving on to something else. She had brown hair, her typical grey eyes, and wore khakis and maroon polo with a light thing that could be called a jacket.

A few students from her class greeted her, citing her as their favorite teacher, something that fed her pride.

There were a few students in her class she considered truly bright. Others were intimidated by her, and downplayed themselves to avoid the limelight. And then some just didn't care and made her wish she could turn them into rabbits without causing half the city to come down on them in a manhunt for the missing children.

 _Humans are so fussy these days_ She groaned internally. _I remember the days when you could turn a couple dozen mortals into animals and nobody would care._

… _or they would panic and tremble before you,_ she considered, _either way, good deal._

 _Now it's all "protect the children"_

Athena cut her internal rant short as she spotted something in the lounging area.

A man.

While that, in itself, was not unusual, he was the nexus of several unusual factors that all came together to pique her interest.

First, he was massive. Easily over 6 ft tall, something readily apparent even while he was sitting down. He wasn't terribly lanky either, he had muscle on his bones, dark skin, and a closely shaved head. Not the over muscled roided out fools who had muscles the size of bowling balls either. It was significant, but it was from being _used_ not from being _trained_.

It was a subtle difference in wording, but it made all the difference in effect.

Combined with his posture as he sat there, this was a man who worked as a _man_ , rather than played as a _boy_.

Still, that wasn't exactly interesting all by itself, there were many people like that in the military, police, and even working in construction or as a firefighter. A hard working meathead was still a meathead.

The fact that he had a large array of works on ancient history, going from the ancient china, to Persia, Egypt, Rome, Greece, and other various countries across Eurasia. He held one book in hands that seemed to be about Alexander the Great's rise to power.

While interesting, it was the small book to his side, sitting on the arm of the chair, that drew her attention.

It was a small thing. Old and crumpled with a leather cover that had seen many years and lots of use. Unlike the others, it surely wasn't from the library. If she didn't know better, she'd say the book was older the building she was standing in.

No, this book was a personal copy. Something well-worn andwell-usedd. Something that spoke of his character as a person. Something told her that this book was endemic to who he was as a person.

Her lips twitched into a smirk for but a moment, before schooling her features and walking up to him.

 _Looks like I found something interesting._

"Hello," She began, greeting him with a bright smile as she adjusted her fake glasses.

The man looked up, not quite startled, but obviously not expecting her to interrupt his reading. His brown eyes glanced up at her own, before flicking over her body. It wasn't in a manner some did, where she almost felt like she was being stripped naked and admired with their eyes. This was…different.

It was something she'd seen before.

Something she'd _done_ before.

His eyes spoke of someone judging her as an entity, judging whether she was a threat. The focused on her arms for a moment, looking over the muscle tone not hidden by her attire, before looking over her face, taking in every detail and committing it to memory.

And all done with the same placid almost-frown on his face, not even the faintest twitch into a smile.

In the end, he looked her straight in the eyes with not the slightest bit of hesitation. Most mortals felt at least an instinctual sense of her presence, of her place above them. They might be able to suppress it or overcome it easily, but it was always there for that first meeting.

He didn't even blink as she pushed it ever so slightly.

Instead, he just looked up at her patiently, but trickle of mild annoyance the back of his eyes. Eye that looked far too old for a man in his mid to late 30s.

 _Oh my_ She all but smirked, _you_ _ **are**_ _quite the interesting puzzle, aren't you?_

"I couldn't help but see you over here with this selection of books." She continued, still wearing the smile, "You seem to have quite the collection of history here."

He grunted in affirmation, before looking down at his book. A burst of anger lit up inside Athena at the thought that a mortal would _dare_ ignore **her**. How dare a mere mortal look over and cast her aside as is she was unimportant. He was _nothing_ before her, she could tear him apart and cast his pieces into the ocean and no one would blink an eye. She could-

She stopped, took a breath, and took a different approach.

Quickly schooling her scowl into another bright smile, she said, "Any reason why?"

The man paused, before seemingly giving a sigh of resignation. He placed the book down on the table, not even bothering with a bookmark.

"I have something of an interest in history." He admitted plainly, his irritation hidden, but evident. His voice was deep and rumbled through the air, not unlike thunder or the roar of gunfire.

She suppressed an angry twitch.

"I can see that." She smiled instead, "but it looks like you're on quite the binge."

He paused again, seemingly choosing his words carefully.

"I've been on deployment for a while. It's been…quite some time since I was able to stop and read a book." He answered.

Looking over his face, she could tell he wasn't lying, but there was something he was hiding.

"Deployment, are you in the military?" She asked innocently, voicing her thoughts.

"Ex-Navy." He answered curtly, but not impolitely.

"Ah," she nodded in understanding, "We see a lot of sailors around here."

"It's kind of Navy town USA." She said, attempting to get him to open up his secrets with small talk.

Instead he hummed in agreement.

 _Calm thoughts, Athena, calm thoughts._

"Anyways, I was curious about what you were reading." She said, trying a different approach.

This time he just silently raised one brow questioningly.

 _And I've gone from people who talk too much, to a man who doesn't talk enough_ she gripped internally.

 _Great_.

"You see, I'm a history teacher at the University. You're kind of reading my bread and butter, and it peaked my interest." She said, giving him the partial truth.

"Understanding the past is crucial to understanding the future." He began, "Besides, you could say I missed a formal education on this. This is my opportunity to catch up"

"The Navy doesn't think dwelling on the past too much is worth it?" She remarked, half in jest.

He shook his head. "Where I come from there isn't much left but ashes. Didn't have much time in the service to bother with it, either."

She hummed in thought, nodding in agreement. It seemed the man before him was a busy and dedicated man who came from a low place in life.

She could work with that.

"And that?" She said, pointing to the book on his chair.

At that, he actually grinned fondly, picking up the book in his hands as if it was his own personal bible, "Sun Tzu is a different matter."

"You show me an officer who hasn't read The Art of War, and I'll show you a bad officer." He remarked.

 _An officer, huh?_ She thought, intrigued

He wasn't wrong, but most officers didn't have the interest in history he seemed to. Then again, it sounded like he didn't have the best education before the service, but was working to make up for that.

 _Well, I can't fault ignorance if it's tempered by efforts to change that._ She admitted.

"Carole Agathe." She greeted, holding out a hand.

He looked at the hand for a moment, his face twisting thoughtfully for a moment, as if honestly considering whether he should take it, before he seemed to steel himself. He took her hand in his large, meaty, and calloused fingers, and shook.

"Philip Zavala"

* * *

In the desert that lay between the glistening bright lights of California and the icy peaks of the Rockies, was a certain resort.

At this resort, only a handful of people ever seemed entire at one time, but it always seemed filled with people having fun at the slots or in the pool. Despite dozens of people entering each year, no one ever seemed to leave.

Time appeared to lose all meaning, guests enjoying their stay and wasting away enjoying themselves, but never really doing anything. It was a place stuck just outside of time. Just present enough to exist, enough to perceive and enjoy yourself, but never enough to actually do anything.

Always stuck in the past, always existing as now, but never reaching toward the future.

In this hotel, two children waited.

A girl, in her teenage years, and a boy still a pre-teen.

The brother and sister pair waited, wasting their time here. Both had a strong resemblance, deep black hair, black eyes, and tanned olive skin. The played with cards and miniatures, and the girl spent her time fretting over her brother, the only thing left of her old life.

Here, they were safe, but nothing ever seemed to really happen.

Time just seemed to pass them by without them ever noticing. Every day it was the same thing, the same "fun", the same stress, the same nothing existence. That's all they were doing right now, existing. Barely even that. It got to the point the girl began to have a thought in her head, a fear, growing and growing.

She was a smart girl, one more clever than her age let on.

She realized what she lived in, if it could even be called living. She slowly recognized that nothing seem to change, and their sense of time seemed to leak from them like water from a woven basket.

How long had they been there? Days? Months?

Years?

And despite that, it didn't feel like anything ever changed. It was always the same day in and day out. The girl began to fear that they would be trapped here, that nothing would ever change, that they would be stuck like a mosquito in amber, forever isolated in an ever constant and meaningless existence.

Until the day something _happened._

It was an indescribable moment. The normally quite happy and sincere staff stopped, and shivered, a feeling coming over them. A fear pervaded through the room, instinctual and all powerful. Everyone, no matter how preoccupied or distracted, noticed.

It was like crashing down from a mountainous high. Everything suddenly felt so dark, filled with so much so crushing depression you would do anything to escape. Several, in that moment, took that instant of dark clarity to take their own life, lest they be stolen by the aura of pacifism of the place.

Only the brother seemed unaffected, still distracted by his toys. But the sister, she saw.

She observed the change taking over the place, and she shivered. For the first time, she considered if she actually wanted to face the real world again.

But she steeled herself. She made her decision long ago. It didn't matter if this place was nice, if it was soft, if it was _safe_. This wasn't living, this was barely even existing.

This was being little more than cattle.

And so she pulled her brother up, moving toward the exit.

Every other time she had only ever been spun around in endless circles, never able to reach that exit, that gateway to freedom, but this time, she knew, it would be different.

Finally the door was in sight. Golden and engraved with decadence, it called to her, promising her freedom.

Then a black object, seemingly blocking out all light and sucking out the very feeling of optimism and joy from the air, appeared in her way.

She startled, craning her neck up to see who stood in her way, to see the next obstacle to her freedom. It didn't matter who it was, she told herself. She was prepared to fight anything to save her brother, to get them to freedom, to escape this gilded cage.

She was not prepared for him.

"Bianca." His voice rumbled, sparking a long lost feeling in her chest.

Her brother looked up at the sound, pulled from his figures. "Who are you?" He said ignorantly and innocently.

Nico was far too young to remember the man. But Bianca remembered. It was distant, a far off memory, but it was there. The images of the tall man with long, deep black hair, that made mama smile so brightly. The man that had once made Bianca feel so safe inside his arms.

"Papa" she said breathlessly.

He smiled, a warm smile, a smile that made her fists clench in anger, but her eyes water in some feeling she tried to deny. "I've come to take you home."

"Princess"

* * *

 _A/n:_

 _It's nice to be back._

 _I missed this story._

 _But yes, this is the last chapter of the Trial._ _Good news, though._

 _This story has done the incredible, and got to 100 follows in 3 chaps._

 _So it gets to live._

 _Hot damn, right?_

 _But I'm in a weird position._ _See, it's tied with Silver Serpent. It's basically a dead tie, when all's said and done. So they both live._ _Weird, I know._ _How am I going to work that?_

 _I..._

 _Am not sure._

 _Either each one gets a month, they split months, I just post whenever the fuck I feel like it, etc etc._

 _Don't know_

 ** _But_**

 _It's going to continue._ _And hopefully not die again._

 _But enough of that. let's actually go over what went on in the chap. Here we see the butterfly effects coming about more. Also, the C and I of the Vanguard make Zavala take a break, and we get a status check on the Ishtar Collective._

 ** _Oh!_**

 _Also, Trav, my advisor for this, pointed out that Zoe's supposed to speak with "thou's" and "thy's"._ _At first, I was like, "Oh no, I've messed up."_

 _Then I thought about it and was like, "Fuck that"_

 _Zoe's from ancient Greece, why the fuck would she be speaking butchered Shakespearean English?_ _Hell, it's like those time Weaboo's throw in a bunch of butchered Japanese in their sentences, oni-chan this or baka-san that._

 _Nobody **actually** talks like that unless they're pretending or acting or whatever. You ever read Shakespear? a solid 66% of it is just indecipherable early-modern English stuff that reads like gibberish. There literally is a translation on the other side just so we can actually understand what's happening._

 _But no, that wouldn't help, it needs to sound old but actually be understandable._

 _Plus, I mean, early modern English? Really? that's not even actually that old. It's that weird sweet spot of sounding old without actually being that old in the grand scheme of things._

 _Still, for the purposes of that passage, assume she was actually speaking ancient greek and the whole thing was just translated for your convenience. I don't honestly feel like researching ancient greek to the point of being 100% historically accurate._

 _Well, not now, maybe later. I'll probably sort out the particulars of Zoe's pattern of speech later, but I really doubt it's going to be that out of date. Just for fun, I might have it be like she's from the 20's ._

 _That would honestly make more sense then butchered early modern English shoved into current English like peas in Mac and Cheese._

 _Getting off track._

 _Regardless, the point is, shit be changing_

 _Oh, also, Destiny 2._

 _Honestly, the trailers for that inspired the little snippet with Cayde killing monsters. I am, however, unsure as to how to actually bring in any of that Destiny 2 stuff into here. I mean, the Cabal should be centuries away from the guardians. Plus, I don't actually like they Cabal that much. They seem far less interesting then the others._

 _Then again, it's a comparison between cool Space Pirates, a Kingdom of Ancient Space Necromancer Knights, and Ancient Time-Space-Warping Robots._

 _And they're just...a Space Empire._

 _Anyways, hopefully I'll be back sometime in april with another chap of this._

 _In the meantime, I'll be playing Age of Triumph and ME: Andromeda_


	5. Chapter 5: Chain

**:**

 **\\_\\_/_/**

 **\\_\/_/**

 **\ _ /**

 **\/**

 **Vanguard**

 **Scene 5:**

 **Chain**

 _A/n: I'd like to thank Trav, my quality control advisor_

* * *

 _I wonder where he's been?_

It had been years since Bianca had seen her papa. It felt like it, anyways. She's not actually quite sure how long it's been, but she can tell things have changed.

A lot.

"How long were we there?" She asks, looking out the window of the car they were riding in.

The car alone looked like it was something pulled from the future. Sleek lines, polished black paint, and bright white lights, it was a far cry from the chunkier cars of her time. Not to mention all the wide assortment of lights that seemed to be everywhere.

Her papa furrowed his brow for a moment.

"About…50 years." He admitted slowly

Bianca's eyes went wide.

50 years

Gone

Wasted in that…place.

It sounds, at face value, insane. Unbelievable. The work of some stupid book. But…

She can't deny how different the world looks now.

Despite how unbelievable it is, something in the back of her mind can't truly deny it.

Her brother, thank the lord, was resting in the backseat. He fell asleep not five minutes after getting into the car. Taking advantage of this, Bianca spits out a string of Spanish curses.

"Language." Her papa chastises.

Bianca frowns, looking away. He may technically be her papa, but…he wasn't there. He's been gone for so long she doesn't feel like he has the right to say things like that, not when he wasn't the one who really raised her.

Unfortunately for her, her papa is more observant than she gives him credit for.

"Bianca…" He begins with a sigh.

"I'm sorry."

Her frown grew into a stubborn scowl. "Sorry doesn't bring mama back."

"I know." He nodded solemnly.

"Sorry doesn't make up for when you left us."

"I know."

"Sorry doesn't make up for throwing us in some weird funhouse of a hotel."

"I know."

Sparing a moment to glance at the girl, he continued with a heavy sigh, conveying more thoughts and feelings than it had any right to. "I know, Bianca, I know."

"I'm not trying to make excuses, but there have been things going on you couldn't even begin to imagine." He explained

"I think I have a guess." She shot back.

He almost snorted at that, but he caught the sharp look in her eye, the intelligent and bitter glint in her oh so familiar black iris.

"Oh?" He challenges instead.

 _Let's see where this goes_ he thinks.

"You're a wizard."

He blinks.

… _huh_

"Or something similar." She continues, waving a hand in dismissal.

At the questioning look in his eye, she continues.

"That hotel we were at was obviously weird. We spent 50 years there but we're not any older, and it certainly didn't _feel_ like 50 years. Sure, it could have been some kind of sciency thing, but I doubt it." She explains.

"But that's just the hotel, you wouldn't have to be a wizard for that to be a thing. As for you, yourself, you've always felt…weird. Weird things happen around you, animals never like being near you, babies cry, a bunch of other tiny things. But that's just the little stuff."

"The bigger stuff is how you always just seemed to…appear…in the house. It always felt like you were just there. One time I think I saw you just…walk out of the shadows. Another time you brought mama a bunch of beautiful flowers in a vase."

"Ones that never seemed to actually die."

Her papa has the courtesy to at least look away at that.

"Especially when you seemingly pull them out of nowhere, vase and all."

He cursed under his breath.

He had hoped that she would have been too young at the time to really remember or appreciate that scene.

"Then there's mama." She sighed, leaning back in the chair. "She was struck by lightning."

"By themselves, not much to think about, but taken together…?"

She gave him a look filled with far more clarity and intent than rightly belonged to a 14-year-old girl. "She was killed by some rival wizard, wasn't she? They couldn't strike at you, so they got mama instead."

His telling silence was all she needed.

She looked away and hummed in thought.

"There's also a bunch of other stuff to consider." She said, raising another point. "One of the theories is that you're some kind of vampire or something."

He quirked a silent brow at that.

"You're unusually pale like you just never see the sun, but you don't look like the type to just huddle inside all the time. There's always something about you that feels…inhuman. No, _beyond_ human. The way you just seem to appear and disappear usually when it's dark out, not to mention how unnaturally stealthy you are, are other signs." She rattled up, ticking off a finger for each one.

"Honestly, I really had my doubts until the hotel. Even that points to you being some kind of vampire-esque thing, maybe like a lord or something. You have actual flunkies and everywhere you go everyone just seems to act like you're the boss or something." She continued.

Then she snapped her fingers, figuring out another piece of the puzzle. "That's it!" She exclaims.

"You have this…presence that just hovers around you. It's like you're the sun, radiating awe-inspiring power. It's like it changes the world just by being there." She explained.

There was a moment of silence as she waited for his response.

"…vampire?" he finally said.

"Probably not." She shrugged, "I certainly haven't felt like sucking anyone's blood or anything."

"But," She began, "We _are_ different. Me and Nico have your deathly pale skin, and we aren't affected by your presence as much as the others were. Sure, I can feel it, but I saw a couple in that hotel look like they were having heart attacks like your sheer existence almost snuffed them out."

"Plus there's the fact that I always feel safer in the shadows like it's….some kind of cool blanket keeping me safe." She added.

"So." She perked up,

"How warm am I?"

Her papa was silent for a tense minute. Bianca wasn't 100% sure she was right about what he was, but she _was_ sure she was right about what he wasn't. Her papa was not just some normal human. He had power, he had a presence, and he had enemies.

Her mother getting killed before her eyes told her that much.

Finally, after sitting in a car filled with enough tension to play it like a piano, he opened his mouth.

"Damn."

"That's not a temperature." She shot back lazily

He responded with a half-hearted and unamused glare. She returned it with a cheeky grin oozing the pleasure of victory.

He sighed.

He thought he might have been doing a bit much of that these days.

He also had the sneaking suspicion that that wasn't going to stop anytime soon.

It was probably going to get worse.

"Well?" She challenged.

Yup.

Definitely worse.

"…Warm enough." He grudgingly admitted.

On the one hand, he was damn proud of his daughter for being this intelligent.

On the other, he would have preferred it if she didn't prove this to him by shattering his world view regarding his own children, and how much he thought he was getting by them.

He would have also have preferred it if she hadn't inherited his damn smirk of victory. It was easy to see, now, why it pissed people off so much.

 _Alright_ he told himself, _think Hades, how are you going to explain this shit to her without her brain melting._

 _Or her hating you forever_

There was another moment of silence as he mulled over what to actually say, and how to approach this. He considered strategy after strategy. Cunning and subtlety were some of the many tools in his trade, and yet this solution seemed to escape him.

Finally, he sighed once more and decided to with something old and reliable, if potentially volatile.

Blunt honesty. "I am Hades."

"And you, are a demigod."

* * *

 **In a particular bar of no particular note whatsoever in East Germany**

"Tadaa"

The young woman seated at the table startled, not expecting the arrival. She wore a hooded leather jacket with a thick grey shirt button-up shirt underneath, black gloves, and jeans with hiking boots. She was young, in her early teens, with chocolate brown eyes and matching hair. Her eyes and fingers twitched about as if at any moment she expected the whole world to turn on her.

On the dark oak table, a man placed a certain hexagonal jeweled box with various carvings on it. The box was about the size and shape of a normal jewelry box, but the carvings held a strange, exotic, and cryptic air. As if they told a story in a language only the dead had left to speak.

"You ok?" The man questioned.

The man also had brown eyes and hair, but was in his mid-late 30's. He wore a brown long-coat over his white shirt, tan pants, and black boots. He stood with a lax and casual posture, at least, to the normal observer. Trained eyes noticed that whatever he did, one hand was always near his side, right within reaching distance of the gun proudly holstered on his belt. It spoke of a man confident in his abilities, but untrusting of the world around him.

The young woman scowled, glancing up at the man with sharp eyes, "How do you always get the jump on me?" She asked her voice carrying a clear accent of an Englishwoman.

"Lots of experience, sweetheart." The man responded with an American accent with bare hints of a southern drawl adding a hint of flavor to the otherwise plain accent.

The young woman simply grumbled, making the man grin all the more.

"Maybe one day you'll catch me." He remarks.

The woman sighs, before glancing at the box. "Was it hard to get?"

"Eh…" The man thinks.

 _Monsters shrieking in pain as round after round punctures their scaled hide. The scent of blood and golden age gunpowder filling the air._

"Not really." He shrugs.

"And you?"

She smirks herself, pulling out her own box. While the one in the man's hands had sapphire overtones, this one had ruby ones. "Tadaa" She mocks.

"Good deal." He nods respectfully.

She found herself surprisingly liking him and his company. He was undeniably skilled, cool under pressure, and actually respected her and her hard earned skills. Respect was a two-way street, and this man gave more than enough to have earned hers.

Granted, it was only their third time working together, but they had only met a year ago during that thing in Siberia. Apparently he'd stumbled onto the same thing, and unlike the others that had done so, he actually didn't want to kill her.

Surprisingly enough, he'd actually helped her get out of that frosted hell alive.

At first, they had just been vaguely in contact with each other. But then there was the second time they met, in which he, in no uncertain terms, saved her life. After that, it was clear he had far more experience than her, skill wise, but less experience in the subject material. After that, they had ended up coming together to work on a different big discovery.

Which lead them to where they were today, at this table in Germany.

"So what do they say?" he asked.

"Cayde, I know you think highly of my skills, but I can't just magically discern what everything means about them in an instant." She responds, exasperated.

"Yeah yeah." Cayde holds his hands up surrender, actually sitting down in the chair.

"But…" She begins.

"But?" he says, curiosity peaked,

"I can tell there's supposed to be a third box." She answers with an eager grin.

"Oh?"

"You see the markings here and here?" she says, gesturing to certain marks on the boxes.

The marks resembled a hexagon with a different mark in them and two lines on one side. The blue box held what looked like a wavy shape. The red one had what kind of looked like some kind of crack.

"Yes?"

"These marks refer to the elements, the waves being water, and the canyon being earth." She explained,

"The land and the sea?" Cayde guessed.

She nodded "Yes, and there's one last part to that, isn't there?"

"The sky." Cayde realized.

"Exactly." she smiled,

"The other evidence is the shape of the boxes themselves. They're hexagons, one of the few that can fit together in an interlocking pattern. Looking at the designs here." She began, arranging the boxes, "You can see that the carvings seem to flow into, or at the very least, allude to a third box."

"Huh." Cayde nodded appreciatively, "Good work."

The young woman preened at the compliment, feeling a swelling a pride.

"Thank you." She said graciously "I'll need time to look over these more to find some clues about where the third box is, and how they play into everything, with two of them it should be relatively easy to compare the two and build off that."

"Any idea what's at the end of this rainbow?" He asked, curious.

"Not entirely sure." She confessed.

"Something about…the power, no, blessing? Of the elements?" She said, scrutinizing the carvings.

"Really?" Cayde drawled. She could see the gears turning in his head as his mind became alight with the possibilities.

"Maybe." She shrugged, "It's a very ancient dialect, and it's going to take some time for me to actually parse together what it really says."

"For all I know it could be leading to a key to start the end of the world."

He blinked

"Lets… _not_ do that."

"Yeah, that'd be bad." She agreed quickly, putting both boxes in her bag.

"Glad we can agree." He grinned, standing up, "Now how 'bout we get outta here?"

She blinks, "We?"

"Yes, we, as in the two of us head back to your place." He repeated, "Come on, I'll walk you home."

Her mind momentarily blanked out for a moment, before she scowled. "I can handle myself." She ground out, rising to her feet.

"Oh, I know, I know." He comforted her,

"I just want to keep you company, it's a dark and cold night out there. What kind of gentleman would I be if a let a young girl like yourself walk home alone." He said, turning up the charm while ambling over to her side.

All it managed to do was make her all the angrier, she thought he was different, she thought he was-

"There are three men with guns inside this room with an unusual amount of interest in us." He whispered in her ear as he snaked his arm around her shoulders, all sense of joviality and charm gone from his voice

Her eyes went wide. She resisted the urge to panic and whip her head around trying to find them. Instead she tried to use her peripheral vision to spot them. She managed to find two, but the third must have been outside her sightlines. Each one tried not to make their interest obvious, but they were clearly more muscle than subtle. The also happened to be packing heat.

Discrete, but not discrete enough.

The momentary gleam coming from the shadows of their jackets was enough to prove his point.

"And I noticed more suspicious individuals on my way here." He continued.

"Shit." She cursed under breath. She struggled not to put her hand on the handle of Roth's gun holstered under her coat.

"I don't have a solid fix on the number of guys, but, well, it ain't great." He confessed, walking slowly to the door. To everyone else, it looked as if two friends were just casually walking towards the door.

"If I had to guess, they're going to ambush us either when we step outside the door or when they think we've gone to sleep."

"But probably when we step outside the door." She grit her teeth.

"Oh come on, Lara." He joked, ruffling her long brown hair, "It'll be fine, ya little scamp."

She really couldn't understand how he could be so calm during times like this, when certain death for someone was only moments away.

But she appreciated it all the same.

"I'm not a scamp." She scowled, her heart rate falling back to normal levels.

"Psh, you're a baby." He scoffed.

"I'm 21."

"Exactly."

"You're insufferable."

"I thought I was charming."

With each word out of their mouths, Lara managed to look more and more calm, her excess nerves relaxing. With each step towards the door, however, her anticipation grew, her hands twitching at what she knew was going to happen.

"Well apparently you've been lied to all your life." She quipped with a flat glare.

"That stings, Lara, that stings." He said, clutching his heart in mock pain.

Her fingers wrap around the doorknob.

"You know what they say about the truth." She remarks with a ghost of a smirk.

She pulls the old wooden door open.

"I think it's all about…" He began

They walked through the opening

"…Perspective."

And they were gone.

* * *

200 meters away, in an empty alley, two figures suddenly appeared.

The brown haired girl fell to her knees, sucking in precious breath.

The man in a brown long coat, however, looked down at her with a faintly amused look.

"You gonna be ok down there?" He smirked

"Yeah," She coughed, "I'll be fine."

They had just teleported, something Lara already knew Cayde could do. Cayde certainly didn't open with being able to perform feats like that, but things ended up falling into place such that he used it to save their hide more than once from what should have been inevitable doom.

The first time had been quite the shock.

* * *

"WHAT THE **BLOODY HELL** WAS _THAT!_ " She shrieked, standing over the small pool once known as "breakfast"

"Uh...what?" Cayde responded, trying to act as if nothing had happened.

"We were in the tunnel-then the rocks were falling-and the light-and then we're suddenly here!" She rambled in a series of half sentences, her mind racing.

"...I don't know what you're talking about."

 _Click_

Suddenly Cayde found himself face to face with a barrel of a chrome-plated M1911, and more worryingly, the unamused girl standing behind it.

"Ok," Cayde hedged, trying not to piss her off, " _Maybe_ something happened."

"Maybe."

She scowled

"We teleported." She ground out, "Or something similar enough that it makes no difference."

"How."

"Ah…" Cayde stalled, rubbing his chin.

"Magic?"

Lara stared, her eyes narrowing dangerously. Her aim didn't waiver an inch, her gun disturbingly steady.

It wouldn't _really_ kill him, but that wasn't really the point.

"Magic?" She said skeptically.

"Yes." He nodded "Magic"

"And I!" He began theatrically.

"Am a Warlock." He bowed.

She blinked.

"A Warlock." She replied, nonplussed.

"Yep." He said, popping the p.

There was another tense moment.

 _Click_

"Fine." She sighed, holstering her gun.

He blinked.

"Fine?"

"Mhm."

"So...you're just ok with me being a Warlock?" He asked, not quite believing how well this was going.

"No, I am not." She scowled. "I don't believe in magic."

"It doesn't really matter whether it was magic or not, the fact is you just moved the two of us through several meters and more than over a dozen tons of solid rock." She explained, "And while I might not believe in magic, I do believe in the unexplained, in the things that seem impossible."

"Last year, for example, I had to fight through a small army of undead ghost warriors to save my best friend from the god-queen that was trying to possess her."

"…" He stared

"I hate it when that happens"

* * *

"Still haven't gotten used to that." She groaned.

She doubted she ever would.

"If you took me up on that offer we could fix that plenty quickly." He pointed out.

"…no thanks." She replied.

"You teleporting me nonstop for several hours a day just to 'get it out of my system' doesn't exactly sound like my idea of a good time."

The sound of metal sliding against leather, before a tell-tale _click_ bought her attention, causing her to look up.

"How about getting the guys that tried to ambush us?" The man smiled, holding up his a black and white revolver with a stylized ace of spades decorating it.

She frowned, "Do we have to kill them?"

He sighed

"I suppose we don't _have_ to," He conceded.

"Then let's not." She frowned, "Unlike you, I don't have magic powers."

She still didn't know too much about the man. He said he was a warlock, but he rarely elaborated on the matter. Every time one of them mentioned it, however, it always looked like Cayde was trying to suppress a grin or a snicker, which he occasionally failed, like it the term was some kind of inside joke.

He had referred to two colleges on a few occasions, but she'd never met them. Didn't even know what they looked like. She just knew it was one man and one woman. Two people he respected, but not to the point of revering them.

Not if his rather crude jokes were any indication.

"It's not like a lack of magic has stopped you before." Cayde pointed out.

"Which brings me to my second point." She said, getting up.

"Which is?"

"That I'd prefer not to kill if I didn't have to."

"Ah." He nodded in sudden understanding

It was things like this that worried her, despite the man's jovial appearance.

Cayde, as far as she could tell, had something of a code. He didn't enjoy killing his fellow man, but he didn't seem to mind it. He wasn't callus enough for her to call him a murderous psychopath or anything, but that code wasn't terribly forgiving.

Simply put, if someone tried to kill him, he'd kill them back. No mercy, no hesitation, and no regret. If they surrendered, sure, he'd let them live. If they didn't try to kill him, he'd show mercy. But the instant they crossed that line, their lives became forfeit.

And that's not even what worried her most of all.

She shook these thoughts from her head, instead thinking about how to leave town without spilling more blood than was absolutely necessary.

"We _can_ just go, right?" She asked

Cayde rolled his neck, thinking about it for a moment.

"…Yeah, I think we can manage that." He said.

"Then let's give the _non_ violent option a shot." She enunciated.

"Ok." He shrugged.

"We can try it."

* * *

"I can understand that Athens was, as you put it, 'the birthplace of democracy'"

"So you admit that I'm right." She grinned.

"I didn't say that." He stopped her with a voice full of patience and a raised hand. "But western culture is far more than just democracy, the United States especially."

"I suppose, but you can't deny that ancient Greece is the grandfather of western culture." She Argued.

"I can admit that the west can trace several roots back to Greece." He conceded.

"But," He cautioned, wiping off the smirk growing on her face "To put Greece on such a pedestal would mean diminishing the efforts of the other civilizations."

 _You say that like they really matter._ She thought, displeasure running through her.

She didn't say it, but the barest hint of a frown was all he needed.

"Carol, you're a history scholar, particularly of Greece," He pointed out, "You can't honestly tell me you've forgotten about the Persians."

She didn't sneer in naked disgust, barely, but she did curse out what she considered barbaric curs quite emphatically in her head.

"Then there are the Romans, the Germanic tribes and nations…" He continued. She grit her teeth, externally working her hardest to display an air of scholarly consideration and poise. Internally, however, was a much different story.

 _I ought to smite him for what he's said_ she seethed. _Perhaps turn him into a seal. See how he likes that._

"Not to mention the impact that the Abrahamic religions caused."

 _Oh, he did_ _ **not!**_

"Carol?" He snapped her out of her thoughts, giving her a look equal parts confusion and concern.

"I'm fine, Philip," She smiled, "You've made some…thought provoking points."

He frowned, but didn't say anything else. Despite her practically flawless external demeanor, she got the sense that Philip wasn't exactly buying it, for some reason.

"I'm not trying to dismiss the contributions of Greece to the world." He said, "It's just that focusing solely on their contributions while ignoring the others seems…shortsighted."

There was no malice in his voice as he spoke, no sense of real superiority. Instead, he treated her like she was a peer, someone on his level.

She _hated_ that.

 _How dare he assume himself to be on my level, all the while spewing out these insults!_ She raged.

She wasn't terribly used to someone pointing these things out. Sure, some people had, in the past, brought such things to her attention when she was disguised as a human, mingling with the mortals. But whenever they did, they were always these scrawny, head in the clouds, weak-willed fools that made it easy for her to dismiss. Some, she admitted, were proper respectable academics.

But none of them had even a wit of true backbone when she _truly_ applied pressure to them.

Except Philip.

Most damnably of all he didn't even seem to notice when she tried to subtly influence him.

Now, in an academic sense, this could be considered cheating. Using brute force to make the opposing side surrender rather than use her wit.

But nobody ever said Athena wasn't a sore loser.

"Are saying that I'm shortsighted?" She questioned, her smile growing a dangerous edge.

"…no," He shook his head, seemingly not even noticing the subtle show of aggression.

"I think you're passionate about your field." He said after a moment of thought.

"Passionate?" she said.

"Yes." He nodded.

"I'm not going to pretend to know everything about all the world cultures, even the complete history of the west." He admitted, "But it seems to me that solely focusing on Greece is a blatant show of favoritism."

Then, the man that angered her so had the audacity to chuckle in the presence of her rage. "I happen to have a few favorites of my own."

"Oh?" She challenged with a raised brow.

"The Roman, Chinese, and British Empires, in particular." He listed.

Her brow twitched at the mention of Rome, a bitter rival in her eyes.

"I see." She murmured, attempting to stare him down.

He didn't so much as fidget.

Finally, Athena, wearing the disguise of Carol Agathe, sighed.

She let out a heavy, weighted, and purging sigh that pulled out the hottest emotions burning inside her.

 _I can always smite him later_ she told herself.

Taking a breath, she actually forced herself to consider his words. While her pride wouldn't allow her to admit he was _right_ , per se, she could admit that he might not be purposefully insulting her to her very face, or that he was spouting incoherent nonsense.

He was also making it _so hard_ for her to outright hate him. He wasn't ranting about it, he wasn't in her face about it. Instead, he was laying some points down in a calm and concise manner. It was…respectable.

Still infuriating though.

"As much fun as this little discussion has been, perhaps we should get some lunch?" In truth, she wasn't hungry. Still, she needed some time to cool down.

Philip may have been infuriating, but he wasn't infuriating enough for her to throw him away just yet. Not with how interesting he was, anyways.

"…sure." He finally nodded.

Even a matter as simple as whether or not to get lunch seemed to be something that he had to actually think about.

 _Why do I do this to myself?_

* * *

 _A/n:_

 _And I'm back._

 _I'm going to try and make this a bi-weekly thing. In that I post every other week._

 ** _Try_**

 _I make no promises on that._

 _Anyway, stuff is beginning to happen, and I'm making a couple more changes._

 _First off, Bianca. To be honest, when I started this, I couldn't really remember her character. Mostly because she spent most of her time being dead._

 _Then Trav informed me of what she was like man, I am not sorry for what I've done._

 _No offense to her...but she was an idiot._

 _maximum offense._

 _You can argue the reasons why she did what she did, which more or less lead to abandoning her brother and killing herself(which you can also argue) but it's irrelevant._

 _Because it's not happening here._

 _Honestly, I've completely redone Bianca's character based on what I thought would be fun/make sense in my mind. Which means, again, canon can kindly go fuck itself. I'm going to be (hopefully) making her a better character than she was in canon because A: vastly different circumstances, and B: because I couldn't live with making her character act like it did in canon._

 _She'll certainly live longer._

 _That said, Bianca is not the central goal of this fic. She'll be a character that is important and does things, but the world does not revolve around her._

 _On another note, that box Cayde got last chap? Well that's a thing now._

 _A rather important thing._

 _Whoops?_

 _Also he made a friend._

 _And to round it out, Zavala and Athena._

 _Zavala is bringing up problems I have. The Greek gods, and large parts of the PJO verse in general, tended to act like the Ancient Greeks were the hottest shit until sliced bread. Which is...a bit narrow-minded._

 _Sure, they did things._

 _They did lots of things._

 _They even did important things._

 _But they did not do all the things._

 _They also, most certainly, do not get to be able to claim sole ownership of the torch of the west or however the hell that works. The idea that they have such a large claim to the US (and the west in general) because Ancient Greece did things irks me something fierce._

 _So, yeah, Zavala's accidentally calling Athena out on some of her shit, in that she should be smart enough to realize the world doesn't revolve around ancient Greece. At the same time, Zavala's accidentally blundered into triggering the shit out of Athena. Like, he doesn't even know how mad she is, or why._ _Which, to be fair, makes sense. As far as he's concerned, he's just having an intellectual discussion with an intelligent woman. Not the goddess Athena._

 _Regardless, we'll see more about how this all turns out later a couple weeks. Bye for now._


	6. Chapter 6: Bind

**:**

 **\\_\\_/_/**

 **\\_\/_/**

 **\ _ /**

 **\/**

 **Vanguard**

 **Chapter 6:**

 **Bind**

 _A/n: Somehow this story's passed 10k views and 150 follows before 6th chapter. God damn.  
_

 _Also, I'd like to thank Trav for all his help and hard work making this all possible._

* * *

"So…"

"So…?"

"…What do you think?"

"…I think I still need to process this." She sighed, rubbing her temples.

"Well, I mean, you were on the right track, it's not like it's _that_ much of a reveal, is it?" Hades questioned.

"Papa, there's a big difference between you being some kind of wizard or vampire, and you being the _King of Hell_!" She exclaimed.

He frowned, "King of the Underworld, not Hell."

"So?"

"It's a pretty big difference."

"It is?"

At this, Hades couldn't help but have his lip twitch into a grin. After all, what parent doesn't love explaining their job to their child.

"Hell is the Abrahamic pit where sinners go. It's supposed to be an unholy, inescapable, and tormenting place for bad people." He began

"The _Underworld_ , however, is simply where the dead go. Good or bad, the dead go to the underworld. In a way, you can think of the Underworld as being the afterlife as a whole. Heaven, Hell, and even Purgatory."

Bianca blinked

"Really?" She said with genuine surprise and interest.

Hades couldn't help but feel his chest swell in pride. "That's right, I manage the afterlife, making sure everyone goes to where they need go. It's a very important job, managing the dead. Lest they overflow and interfere with the living."

"So you're the god of Death." She mumbled to herself.

He winced, "Er, no. Not quite. I'm the King of the Dead, god of the Underworld, but I'm not the god of Death."

"Wait, so that's something else _too?_ " She questioned, thoroughly confused.

"Yes, our god of Death is Thanatos." He answered, "He can be a bit…broody, but he's got a good heart."

"huh…" She said numbly, turning to stare out the window.

They had finally made it into the city of Los Angeles, the home of the Underworld. Or, at the very least, it's connection to the land of the living. Night had fallen and the lights of the city danced in his daughter's eye.

Bianca was mesmerized by the sights around her. She could just sit back and drink it all in. She had to.

Everything was so…different…now.

Mama was dead.

Papa was back.

They were 50 years in the future.

She was a demigod.

More than that, it seems that she was a princess of the underworld, her father a king, a god, even.

Glancing towards the back seat, Bianca let herself have a small smile. Even if everything was different, at least she still had her little brother.

Then she realized something.

"Wait, _our_ god of Death?" She exclaimed, whirling back around to face her father.

"er, yeah." He recoiled slightly, taken off guard.

"Does that mean that there's others?" She asked

Hades grimaced.

"It's…complicated." He sighed.

"And, no, I don't mean in the 'I don't want to talk about it' way." He headed her off with a raised hand, knowing full well she was about to go there, "it's because, it is, in fact, very complicated."

Letting out a hot breath, he considered how best to explain it as he ran a frustrated hand through his black locks.

"Short version, most all mythological Pantheons exist. At least if they are still well known or worshipped. Every Pantheon has it's own take on death, whether that may be a special god that presides over it, or a certain type of beings that manage it." He began.

"And they're all more or less accurate."

"Wait, but wouldn't that cause, like, a whole lot of conflict?" Bianca interrupted.

"Oh, it does. That's why it's so complicated." He nodded with a bitter smile. "To be honest, it's a nightmare these days. There's different regions, different exceptions to the rule, different allowances. There's also the question of power. There's a certain level of 'might makes right' in which the stronger Pantheons get more influence, leading to a kind of pecking order where some Death gods are stronger than others."

He sighed explosively, seemingly sagging in his seat. "It's a real mess."

"…huh." There wasn't really anything else Bianca could think to say. That had raised more questions than answers, but if her papa was right, that was to be expected. And he was just dumbing it down for her.

 _Sounds like if I want to live up to papa's name, I'll have to be a bit more than clever._ She realized.

"But…" Her father began, absentmindedly looking out the window. "There is _one_ constant."

"Oh?" She inquired, her interested piqued.

"It's a real simple one too." He nodded.

"Death is absolute."

She blinked.

"I'm...not sure I get it," She said, her face scrunching up in confusion. "Isn't that kinda basic?"

"Oh, it is, but not how you understand," Hades responded. "Every culture around the world has, at the very least, some concept of death. They may interpret it differently, but each one realizes that at a certain point, things die."

"And just like the concept of Death is overarching and absolute in the minds of mortals, so too is it in the realm of gods."

His voice grew a weight that wasn't there before. The air in the car seemed to grow cold, the hair on her skin standing up on end.

Bianca shivered, feeling the unnatural importance of his words press down upon her, "W-what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that Death itself is a very real thing. As much as the other gods might not want to admit it, it is a beyond ancient, it is beyond powerful, and it is beyond intelligent."

"And it is Hungry."

* * *

 _Clack_

In the handful of months since she had met the man before her, Athena had found him to be both infuriating and surprisingly competent.

 _Clack_

One thing she most certainly did not take him for, was a fool. Sure, he may have done things she might consider foolish, but by mortal standards, it was actually rather reasonable. Other things were through little fault of his own, things he simply couldn't have known.

Things like _daring_ to undermine the glory of Greece in front of her most august self.

 _Clack_

But more recently, something had surprised her.

 _Clack_

One day, when they met in that library once more, as had become the custom these days, he asked her a question. A request for clarification and enlightenment.

But it was the _topic_ of this request that truly surprised her.

 _Clack_

For in this realm, against all expectations, he was surprisingly ignorant. He knew little of the subject material, only catching the various references and allusions to it, and he had no first-hand experiences of it himself.

He was completely new to the test of wits before him.

Something Athena was more than happy to correct

"Check"

Athena smiled as she looked up at her opponent sat across from her. Philip frowned as he took in the board in a glance, before making his own move.

 _Clack_ rang out the sound of wood upon wood.

It was incredibly surprising to Athena that Philip hadn't heard much of Chess before, let alone played it. But she was happy to play it with him. She has really picked up the little game, tracking it as it slowly became known in the Western World. At first, it was so disorganized, with hardly any ironclad rules. But with the proper guidance they finally managed to get their act together.

 _Clack_

At first, the man was abysmal at the game. She wasn't surprised, he'd never played it before. He wasn't entirely sure how to really play the game. He internalized the rules quickly enough, he just wasn't sure how to apply them. It looked, to her, that while he may have been intelligent he didn't instinctively know how to apply his own tactical knowledge to the wooden battlefield.

But…he had not disappointed her. She may have been surprised by his lack of knowledge, by the depth of his ignorance, but inexperience did not equal lack of talent or skill.

"Check" Philip called out after moving his rook.

Athena glanced at the board.

 _As I thought_ She smiled, _the 8_ _th_ _scenario_

It wasn't a bad move, it was, in fact, a very good move. It put him in one of the best possible positions he could be in.

 _Clack_

The problem was, was that it simply wasn't good enough.

They were getting into the end of the game, and soon enough it would be hers. There were very few pieces left on either side. His 4 to her 6.

 _Clack_

Zavala had skill and talent for this, Athena could tell. It hadn't been refined by hours upon hours of time spent playing, but he had the raw mindset for such strategic actions.

It was simply that she was far better. Better than he could ever hope to be, really. This was, by definition, her area of expertise. This was _what she did_.

He could never hope to truly stand as her equal.

"Checkmate."

She reclined in the chair, unable to keep the smug grin from her face as she basked in her 9th victory.

Philip himself looked over the board for a moment, not content to just accept her word for it. But in the end, he finally conceded that there was no way out for his king with a nod. He frowned and grumbled something under his breath.

"I'm not sure that kind of language is appropriate for this setting." Athena smirked, "You have to think of the children, you understand."

"I think it builds character." He grumbled as he rubbed his bare chin. "I also think this game is bullshit."

She was unable to suppress a snort. "Come now, Philip, you didn't expect yourself to be able to master it immediately, did you?"

"No," He conceded, "I did not."

"I also didn't expect the fabled game of incredible strategy and cunning to be so…dumb."

"Dumb?" She questioned, a smile playing on her lips. As infuriating as the man was, Athena had to admit it was fun when the shoe was on the other foot.

"It's…I…They…" He said inarticulately as he searched for the words.

"…The game is basic." He finally began.

"It takes everything down and breaks it down into such basic, flat, and even concepts it can't even be called a childish version of actual battlefield combat and tactics."

"That's because it's not." She grinned, "It's a game."

He glared.

"You know, for fun?" She offered.

His glare did not abate.

She laughed in the face of his annoyance.

What probably made this all the more humorous was that he was actually disturbingly good at this game. This was only Philip's 11th match _ever_. Despite that, he was able to force her to actually _try._

Athena didn't have to try particularly _hard_ , but that wasn't surprising. The fact she had to try at all was a feat worthy of people with days' worth of hours of experience playing the game.

The first game they had played, she had won, as was right, but it was a trivial, easy victory. She didn't even have to really try.

At the same time, however, Philip barely knew how to play. It was…almost cute watching the man fumble around the battlefield. The second game went much the same, just with a mild increase in his skill. Still, he wasn't a fool, and he didn't let his pride get the best of him. All throughout the first two matches, he asked an endless array of questions. Each time she performed one of the more special moves, such as castling, instead of throwing a fit, he would dive deep into questioning the hows and whys of what she did.

For all his initial failings, he seemed to soak up knowledge like a sponge.

Just when she was about to give in, to write it off as him simply lacking any aptitude for the game, he pulled out his first win in the 3rd game. He had finally managed to apply basic, amateurish at best, tactics to the game properly. The only reason he won that game was because she hadn't actually been paying attention and he had snuck it by her.

Still, it was enough to get her interested again.

She won the next four, but each was markedly harder. Finally, when she had thought that she had him marked down, his tactics locked in, he changed it up again. It had been going so well at first, she had captured many of his pieces. It was his 6 to her 11. And yet, in only a handful of turns, he managed to checkmate her through the mess of the battlefield.

Since then she had figured a few things out about him. It seemed he did the best when he was the underdog, so to speak. He worked best with fewer pieces or playing defensively, as opposed to crushing her with numbers.

Not that those things were terribly easy to see in chess, but Athena got the feeling that the man was used to defensive or guerrilla warfare.

No surprise how.

"You're quite skilled at this, Carol." Zavala finally said.

"Well, I _was_ the champion of my school's chess club." She smirked.

In a way, technically true. At least, as long as "school" meant "pantheon".

He chuckled, "And here I thought you were just a mild-mannered history teacher."

"Well we're not all skin deep, you know." She remarked.

"Who's this 'we' you speak of?" He remarked, picking up his mug of tea for a sip.

"Why, I'm speaking of beautiful women like me, of course." She teased with a smug grin.

He snorted into his mug, "Yes, of _course_." He humored her.

"I'm glad we could agree." She smiled triumphantly.

Commander Zavala, through his years of experience, had learned to pick his battles.

And that was not a battle worth fighting.

Instead, he sighed, regrouped, and picked a different one.

"You mentioned something about Independence Day? The movie?" He asked

"Oh, yeah." She perked up, suddenly switching gears from "I am truly one of the greatest things your pathetic mortal eyes have laid eyes upon" to "action movie nerd".

Athena will protest this fact to most anyone who'll bring it up, but those who care to actually know her can quickly pick this up. Despite praising wisdom and strategy, she was still hopeless before the power that was the mortal media and pyrotechnics.

"Have you seen it yet?"

"…Zavala."

"Yes?"

"That movie doesn't come out for another two weeks."

"It doesn't?"

"No…no it doesn't."

"Hmm." He frowned as if this new information had just thrown all his plans into the air.

"Zavala…" She began tiredly, "You don't care much about this movie, do you?"

He opened his mouth, as if to counter, before holding his tongue, and truly considering the issue. After a moment of thought, he continued.

"I…am forced to admit that my skill in social situations is…rusty." He admitted.

Athena winced. That was one painfully true fact about the man. For all that he was an interesting mortal to her, she had to bare much of the weight of casual conversation. The best way she could describe it was that the man was trying to learn how to be a civilian again.

She had seen it before. Being a goddess of war meant she intimately familiar with such things. She might not have the same connection as Ares, but he rarely cared for the fallout of war. The brute of a god simply relished in the destruction and "glory" of the battle itself. As such, Athena could admit she was sympathetic to a man trying to re-engage with the rest of society.

He hadn't drawn a gun on her or anything, but she chalked that up to luck and his own absurd levels of self-control. The fact that he never let himself go truly unarmed or without at least 3 escape routes, on the other hand, was more indicative towards the truth.

To be frank, it was the little things. Things like this, where he awkwardly tried to continue a conversation about a topic he had little interest in.

And being the magnanimous and brilliant goddess of wisdom and strategy that she was, she knew pity.

And she knew mercy.

"What if you went with me?" Athena suggested with a smirk, breaking the silence just before it became truly awkward.

"Went…with you?" He questioned confused and off balance.

"To see the movie."

"…why?"

It took all she had not to bring her palm to meet her face.

 _Why must he infuriate me so?_

"To have _fun_ ," She enunciated.

"Fun?" He repeated as if it was a bizarre and foreign concept.

"Yes." She nodded, "Fun."

"…why would watching Independence Day be fun?"

 _MOTHERFU-_

"Because people go to watch movies for fun. Watching stories unfold on the big screen is…entertaining." She explained a patient, if tense, smile, reigning in that anger and refusing to let even a hint of it show through pure force of will.

"Why on earth would I want to watch fictional live combat for something other than instructional purposes?" He remarked casually, barely even thinking through the answer. "It's not like it's nothing I haven't seen before."

She blinked, surprised that he'd been in such fierce conflict considering the relative peace of the world.

 _Perhaps from the Gulf War?_ She considered _Or maybe he was in the Special Forces of the American Military, and deniable ops?_

Even as she was caught off guard, she still had a comeback waiting on her tongue.

"So you've fought off an alien invasion?" She questioned sarcastically.

For a moment, just a moment, she could have sworn that he was going to yes.

"…no." He frowned instead.

She quirked a suspicious brow at that his hesitance to respond with the blatantly obvious answer. She was about to make a comment when she was interrupted by a loud buzzing sound.

Philip twitched fractionally, before snatching up a black brick-like device sitting on the table in front of him. He stopped for a moment to look at the face of the brick-like device, before clicking a button and pressing it to his ear.

"Zavala." He answered it.

He blinked.

"… _What?"_

* * *

 **In the Baltic Sea**

"What do you know about fighting Pirates?"

" _Cayde, what the hell are you talking about?"_

"Look," The man dressed in a brown long coat began as he held a slim device to his ear, "I'm on a civilian ship that just got boarded, and I need to know about how to fight pirates."

" _What on earth makes you think I know the first thing about fighting Pirates?"_

"You're an Awoken, that shit's in your blood, right?" Cayde remarked casually as he idly checked his shotgun.

He was currently in the galley of the ship room filled with several other civilians. Most of whom were either panicking loudly or crying quietly.

"… _I don't even know where to begin with that statement,"_

"That's not a no." Cayde quipped all too cheerily.

In **San Diego** , Athena couldn't help the thought that ran through her mind

… _Did he say pirates?_

To say that Athena was confused would have been an understatement.

Of the many interruptions, she could have predicted would have sprung up between Philip and her discussion, one of Philip's acquaintances calling him about _pirates_ , of all things, didn't register.

Given the way Zavala was reacting, Athena guesses he wasn't expecting it either.

But as he slowly brought a hand up to his face to meet his creases brow, she got a distinct impression that he wasn't surprised either.

He sighed, just under his breath, and for a moment took on a look of resigned acceptance.

"…Are there civilians on the boat." He finally said

* * *

Back in the **Baltic Sea** Cayde glanced around the room at the room filled with civilians.

"…I'd say so."

" _how many are there? What condition are they in? Are any wounded?"_ Zavala asked, his voice slipping into his commanding tone.

"Er," Cayde paused, "There's 18 other people in the room. 15 are actually crew, the other 3 are a family that bought their way on board like us. Most are in good shape. One guy lost a hand. The kid's crying their eyes out. And at least 5 of the crew are dead, the rest are MIA, assumed dead."

" _Wait, bought their way on board?"_ Zavala questioned.

"Yeah, it's being a stowaway, 'cept not, 'cause you paid. Right now we're on a cargo ship. Technically we aren't _supposed_ to be here, but the crew was willing to look the other way for a few grand." Cayde explained, "And I brought food for us so we wouldn't starve."

Then he whispered into the microphone, "Well, I mean, you know, so _they_ wouldn't starve"

Not needing food himself, Cayde could afford to bring less, if any, provisions.

Being an incredibly handsome immortal robot space wizard cowboy from the future had its benefits.

" _So…you 'hitched a ride' on this cargo ship, and it's now under attack from pirates?"_ Zavala slowly reiterated, _"About a third of the crew is probably dead, and you have one injured and all of them are civilians."_

"Well, I mean, some of the crew are armed and want to take the fight to the boarders, but I wouldn't really trust most of them not to accidentally shoot themselves." Cayde remarked, "In reality, I'd say about…eh…3 of them could reasonably hold their own. Maybe 4."

" _What are they armed with?"_ Zavala asked,

"We got three shotguns, two rifles, and five pistols. The Captain looks like he was ex-navy himself and knows his way around a gun, but he's no sharpshooter, especially with those shaky hands of his. The engineer at least knows which way the bullets come out of and not to point it at people, the chief is pretty handy with a blade." Cayde listed off.

"And the father…he's definitely ex-special forces. He didn't bring much other than a pistol and a knife, but he doesn't really seem to need much else."

"… _Alright…I can work with this."_ Zavala commented. Cayde could practically feel the man nodding grimly. _"How severe is the boarding force? Numbers, weapons, ships?"_

"Er, well…" Cayde trailed off, not sure how to put it.

" _Well?"_ Zavala said impatiently.

Just as Cayde was about to answer, his heightened sense perked up. He heard something in the distance through the bulkheads and his motion tracker lit up.

"Wait, hold up," Cayde stopped him, focusing on the sound.

It was…footsteps. Fast and numerous. He could hear frantic breathing. A pounding heart.

He turned towards the wooden door to the room, the one weakness of the otherwise well defended and well-stocked galley. He placed a hand on the worn handle of his Ace of Spades, ready to draw it at a moment's notice.

Most didn't pick up the small action, the quiet tenseness of his figure, the way put himself before the door. Only the Captain and the Father seemed to notice it, each one reaching for their own weapons, the father subtly shifting before his wife and daughter.

He knew they couldn't hear what he could, couldn't sense anything through the bulkheads and steel, not over the roar of the rest of the crew.

But they didn't matter, Cayde had long since been able to tune them out. To focus on what he needed to hear. He could feel each step they took, each movement they made.

Step by step, inch by inch.

Until, finally, the sounds reached the humans in the galley.

" _Cayde, what are you fighting?"_ Zavala repeated more seriously this time.

Cayde winced, he probably should have opened with that. It was kind of important information.

Unfortunately, any information he wanted to give was washed out by the deafening roar of panic from the frantic civilians who were scared out of their minds. Even the crew seemed shaken to the core. Only the Captain, Cook and Father seemed to retain any sense of calm. Outside the door, loud sounds clashed together. Something bumped against the door, eliciting a terrified shriek from the crew.

"Right, see, that's probably the biggest problem," He began, "We're fig-"

 _Crack_

Suddenly, an ax, of all things, smashed through the wooden door, gouging a massive tear through its body and fracturing the rest of it. The panicked mass behind him yelped in surprise.

"Fighting-"He continued, another violent collision shaking the door. Through it, he could hear screams and rasps.

The father grabbed his pistol and knife, holding it in an over-under position. The captain picked up the shotgun beside him with a trembling, but firm, hand. The chief merely grinned, gripping the cleaver in his hand with a glint in his eye.

The door shook and trembled, the walls vibrated with energy. It sounded like a storm was raging just outside the galley, with the door being the only thing standing between them and hell itself.

Until it could hold no more

 _ **CRASH!**_

The door _shattered_ , wooden splinters exploding everywhere. Cayde weathered the storm with a measured calm born from centuries of experience. All around him, people _roared_ in blind terror. The child cried, the mother shrieked, and the deckhands screamed. Through the maelstrom, he could see it.

It charged through the door, it's first step almost a stumble, but it's second bringing it back into balance.

An armored boot slammed into the floor. It was old and dark, dripping wet and rusted. Trailing upwards to meet a limb covered in taut, pale, flesh covered in leathers, furs, and rusted chainmail.

The thing before could not be described as human, not anymore. Its flesh was old and rotten, held taut against the skin making it little more than a skeleton anymore. It reeked of death and rot. Despite its dead form, it's eyes were filled with a sinister blue light. It's bared and decayed teeth opened before him as the dead thing howled in anger, raising the ancient ax in its hands in the air and preparing to charge.

When an arrow wreathed in cerulean fire burst out from its putrid chest.

It roared in agony as the fire consumed its body, racing across the damp flesh as easily as if it was bone dry. The arrow was pulled from its body, and unsupported it fell to the ground, writhing in agony as it died of burning hell.

And in its wake, stood a young woman in her early twenties with dark brown hair and matching eyes, wearing a thick white shirt, dark pants, hiking boots, and a leather jacket.

Suddenly, she dove to the ground, rolling across the floor. An instant behind her, a large steel ax crashed into the floor where she once stood, burying itself in the tile. Holding it was another such creature with rotten flesh, ancient furred armor, and unnatural blue eyes.

Before it could react, the girl lunged forward, burying the burning arrow into the second creature's heart, and spreading the merciless flames to a new unholy terror. Taking a step back, she pulled the arrow from its chest, and took a breath, thinking the danger had passed.

Instead, a third monster appeared in the doorway, wearing thicker plates of rusted iron armor and carrying a rusted iron sword in one hand, and a wooden shield in the other.

Then it's head vanished in a white cloud of ash and rot.

 _ **Bang!**_

The Ace of Spades chimed in pleasure as its master landed another shot directly on target.

The girl looked up at him with a momentary look of gratitude, before bracing her hands on her knees and sucking in hungry breath after breath.

Before he could open his mouth, he once again interrupted.

A roar went out, a thunderous bellow. It rang out through the halls of the ship, leaving no corner untouched. It echoed within the minds and souls of all the living who bear witness to it, shaking all but the strongest to their core.

"Shit."

* * *

 **Back in San Diego**

"Cayde?"

Athena was, frankly, unsettled by what she was seeing. Philip was a man she considered all but unshakeable. Sure, he on occasion may be ruffled up of put off balance for a moment, but never before had she seen him like this.

Shortly after he began his call, he seemed to tune out the world around him, becoming completely absorbed in his own little world. Out of courtesy, she had put up a small area of privacy around the two of them. No one else would really notice or hear them, within certain limits.

Not that it would have mattered, anyways. When he began to enter the discussion in earnest he slipped into a foreign tongue. One that not even her knowledgeable self could figure out. In a way, it sounded like a mishmash of several different languages, but so horribly distorted and with so many new words added she couldn't fathom what he was actually saying beyond the most general of ideas.

His entire being appeared to change before her eyes. His stance became rigid, his back straight. He began to pace, his face etched into a hard frown that seemed to fill the world around it with depth and weight simply by its presence. His eyes flitted about the room, taking in everything, but lost in their own world.

Then, for an instant, his eyes met hers, and she _shivered_.

His eyes had become cold and calculating, hard with the refined and rough intellect of a well-worn practitioner of war.

In that moment, her friend, Philip, was gone, and in his place stood only Commander Zavala, the Titan Vanguard.

Athena, ignorant of these facts, could only recognize the age and experience held within them. For all that she could boast and preen, she was far from easily bought or swayed by praise. Above all, she admired one's aptitude and browses. The way one could think, the way one could analyze and break everything down in a moment, the way that one could reshape the world with nothing but their will and wit.

 _My my, Philip_ She couldn't help but grin _Another piece of the puzzle revealed, but another 20 questions raised._

Zavala was a befuddling, complex, infuriating, and thought provoking challenge of a puzzle for her to unravel.

And that _exhilarated_ her.

"Cayde, report!" He ordered, growing impatient.

"… _right, sorry boss, had to get everyone to stop collectively shitting their pants for a moment."_ Cayde replied, finally getting back on the line. _"you know I'm not exactly the best at rousing speeches."_

Despite the urge to groan and pinch his brow, he soldiered on without, "Cayde, you mentioned something about your borders?"

" _Oh, right, yeah. Zombie Vikings. It's, uh, a pretty self-explanatory name, Zavala. They're Viking Zombies."_ Cayde answered, _"Who are also pirates."_

Zavala didn't even pause as he internalized the information, as ridiculous sounding as it was.

Truth be told, it wasn't the strangest thing he'd encountered in his life.

"Give me a report on their capabilities." He commanded.

" _Well, in short, they're a bitch to kill. My gun seems to work just fine at doing it, but I'm not sure about the others. They're definitely stronger and more durable than normal, though."_ Cayde explained.

" _Some of the bastards even seem to be wearing some kind of plate armor, armor that's actually capable of stopping a bullet or two."_

Zavala's frown only deepened. Civilians in the area, enemies resistant to harm, limited ways of neutralizing their foes, and extremely limited escape routes.

This could easily become a bloodbath for the civilians.

"What are their numbers?" Zavala asked, hoping for the best, but fully expecting the worst.

" _Er, honestly, I'm not sure. I've confirmed the appearance of 41, I know that 10 are dead, but given the boats that appeared and the size of the ship I'm on, there could easily be over a hundred._

Philip's lip twitched into a shadow of a scowl for a moment at the lack of actionable intelligence, but before he could open his mouth, Cayde continued, glancing at the young woman by his side.

" _Which is what I have my scout for."_

* * *

 **Baltic Sea**

"Your what?"

"Scout, apprentice, same difference." Cayde dismissed with a wave of his hand.

Lara scowled at him, "I'm hardly your _apprentice_ " She seethed.

"Wow. That hurts, Lara," He mocked, placing a hand over his heart. "I thought we had something."

" _Cayde, who the hell are you talking about?"_ Zavala _"And how the hell does she know Terran?"_

"Oh…right," Cayde said, the fact that they hadn't actually met yet just dawning on him.

Holding out the device to Lara, he prompted her to take it. Slowly, and uncertainly, Lara took the device from him. She gave it a momentary glance of curiosity, noting that rather than appear simple and "magical", like some kind of glowing rock, it looked like a slim device with futuristic designs.

She held the device up to her ear much like she would a phone, despite being several times smaller than even the standard home phone.

"Umm….hello?" She began cautiously.

"… _I'm assuming that you are Lara?"_ He began, his deep and commanding voice surprising her for a moment.

"Y-yes, I'm Lara Croft." She responded

Zavala let out a hot breath and muttered a curse she couldn't quite translate, but somehow involved a rhino's intestines.

"… _Very well, Ms. Croft,"_ He finally said, beginning introductions, _"My name is Philip Zavala. What has Cayde told you of our situation?"_

"Er…he said you all were…Warlocks?" She said uncertainly, giving Cayde a pleading look, silently begging for his assistance.

He gave her a wink and a thumbs up.

Zavala cursed under his breath again.

Then he tapped the side of his left ear, and suddenly when he next spoke she could also hear him through the device.

"Yeah, Zavala, this is Lara, she's good people." Cayde vouched for her.

" _You still haven't told me how the hell she speaks Terran."_

"Eh, she soaks up languages like a sponge so I decided to teach it to her over the course of a year. She's at, like, a Third School level" Cayde explained.

Lara had to admit that the language had been a bit strange, and had raised more questions than it answered, but she had relished the challenge in deciphering the mess of rules and exceptions.

Zavala seemed to…fume…for a moment over the connection, before forcing himself to move on.

" _That is a matter for another time. Right now, you have bigger issues."_ He pointed out, steering the conversation back on task.

" _What can you tell us about the threat?"_ Zavala questioned

"Like I said, Boss. Zombie Vikings." Cayde

"What?" Lara said incredulously

"The Zombie Vikings."

"The wha?…no. They're called Draugr. They're like...Norse ghosts or vampires."

"Or Zombies."

"I…guess…" Lara said uncomfortably.

Technically, Cayde had a point, it just felt…wrong…to Lara to simplify them in such a crude manner.

" _Draugr, hmm?"_ Zavala muttered to himself, _"Why are they there?"_

"Well, according to legend, Draugr tended to guard treasure or torment mortals." Lara began "My guess is that they're here because of the boxes."

" _Boxes?"_ Zavala questioned.

"There are these treasure boxes we've been collecting. Each one's been a bit tricky to get, in a rough location and guarded by…monsters, I guess." Cayde explained. "We've got two out of three of them. The working theory is that once we get all three we'll finally be able to open them."

"At the end of it all, we're supposed to get some kind of 'blessing of the elements', whatever that would be," Lara added.

"And you know what they say, Boss. High risk, high reward." Cayde helpfully commented.

"… _So what can be done about them?"_ Zavala said after a pause.

"That's actually kind of the problem." Lara wined. "Legend says they're immune to weapons."

Cayde simply glanced down at the ground towards the three bodies at his feet, each one turning to white ash dissolving into the air, before looking at Lara with a questioning brow.

"I got a good look at the ships," She said, "And I think I know what it meant."

"Each one of the three ships by ours has this…glowing blue stone on it," She continued

Cayde frowned, "Like the source."

Lara nodded with a grim expression.

" _Source? Cayde, what Source?"_ Zavala questioned.

Cayde winced, "Right, uh, sorry, forgot to mention that boss. It's kind of a long story."

"… _Cayde, after this we are going to have a long discussion about proper communication and coordination."_ Zavala ground out. _"For now, continue."_

"Oh…cool," Cayde grimaced. Switching gears as fast as he could, he turned back to the girl. "Lara?"

"Right, well, much like the source, it seems like they're connected to it. I saw it seemingly summon more Draugr by gathering up what looked like ashes from open jars on the vessel." Lara explained.

"So basically, they'll keep respawning no matter how many times we kill them." Cayde simplified.

"Looks that way." Lara grimaced, "To make matters worse, they seem to disregard most injuries. Stab them in the heart or blow out their chest and they'll keep coming. Cutting off limbs can debilitate them, but they don't really seem to stop. Even a decapitation just slows them at best."

"Wait, then how'd we kill them?" Cayde wondered

"Well, frankly, you're bullshit…" Lara remarked with a dry look, gesturing to his revolver.

Cayde blinked, "…point"

"…And Greek Fire is also bullshit." She added, holding up the arrow currently wreathed in cerulean flames.

He paused, considering the point, then shrugged, "Makes sense."

"And unfortunately, I barely had enough materials to scrap together so I could ignite the one arrow. Sure, it's enough for me, but…" Lara trailed.

" _That…is a problem,"_ Zavala said, Cayde picking up the scowl in his voice.

" _This eliminates several of the potential tactics you had available. You cannot bleed your enemy dry, and now your combat effectiveness as a unit has been gutted."_ He grumbled.

" _But difficult is still several million miles away from impossible,"_ He said, a deep defiant growl in his voice. _"And a problem is nothing but a challenge begging for a solution."_

" _I_ _f they think they can make us tremble and bow, I'm quite sure you shall_ _ **punish**_ _them for such a grievous mistake."_

* * *

 _A/n:_

 _Alright, I'll admit this is off by a week.  
_

 _Sort of my fault, but also a bit out of my hands._

 _Last week there were some setbacks, including me burning my hand and somehow losing the chapter at some point, making me redo it._

 _Speaking of which, this is, at a minimum, the third version of this chapter. The first got lost/deleted on accident, and the second got rewritten. The chapter was originally going to be far more lighthearted and humorous._

 _Basically, it was going to be all, "Lol, Cayde and Lara kill Zombie Pirates"_

 _That turned into, "Holy shit, Draugr"_

 _Also, turns out, the Draugr as portrayed in Skyrim are, if anything, the kid-friendly version. The other version was more fucked up and gross._

 _They were also invincible and the only way to kill them was to literally wrestle them back into their graves._

 _As you might be able to see, I'm not **quite** using that version. The Skyrim version is easier for me to picture. But hey, who says both can't exist?_

 _And, as some of you might have noticed...Lara Croft is a thing._

 _Yes, I've brought in Tomb Raider._

 _While it was more or less an accident when I first did it, I fully stick by doing it. Lara Croft totally fits what I want to do with this story, and she's very easy to bring in._

 _She already exists on earth, and she doesn't bring too much baggage. What I mean by this is that she doesn't have some kind of massive mythos in her world that I'm somehow going to have to find a way to work into Destiny and PJO's._

 _I'm also going to be using the recent reboot Lara because A: I like that Lara the most by miles, and B: I've actually played those games._

 _Plus, Lara is just a human. She isn't some kind of half alien half demon girl with magical powers because she's the chosen one._

 _She's human._

 _Even if she can perform superhuman feats, she is a human being, not a nonhuman entity. Her doing things is an example of what humanity is capable of, rather than something else coming in and giving humans a hand because we're so fucking weak we can't do anything._

 _Plus, this lets me do fun stuff with Cayde._

 _Also, as for the language that Cayde and Zavala are speaking, I more or less made that up as being a thing on the spot. I recalled that English has changed a fuckton over even just the past 500 years. And it didn't have to go through an apocalypse._ _So basically the common tongue of the Last City is Terran, which is a mix of a bunch of different languages, primarily English, Russian, and Mandarin, as well as the conventional mutations born from centuries of time and development. I'm no Tolkien so I'm not going to actually going to be making up a language. Way too much trouble for me._ _At the same time, it is here, as I post this chapter, that I realize I should have probably come up with a way to better point out when they're not speaking English. Right now it's about 4 am so that's **way** much work for me at the moment. I'll do it later. Probably [brackets] or something._

 _I"ve also realized, holy shit time is disjointed as fuck. With Bianca and Hades, this is still the same day as when they left Hotel California a few chapters ago. During that same period of chapters, several months has gone by for Zavala and Athena. They met in late January, and now it's early-mid June. And Cayde found his blue box about a week ago._

 _So yeah, I should probably get everyone on the same timestamp soon._

 _Also, speaking of Z and A, Chess. I was going to make Zavala a grandmaster expert at chess that could actually beat Athena, but then I figured that chess not being one of the things that survived to the Last City made a degree of sense, and it would be funnier and work better, be more balanced, and be more fun if Zavala had never even heard of chess before, making him a complete novice._ _As you can see, he's getting better, but he's got a loooong way to go before he's actually a serious challenge to Athena._

 _Like, at least a month._

 _And finally Hades, Bianca, and Death. Mostly Death. Death is...well, Death is going to be more than something as simple and weak as a single god like Thanatos._

 _At least when I'm writing the story._

 _That's it for me right now. As a warning Real Life has come up again, so there might be delays in posting between the end of may and the beginning of June._

 _Oh, and I might do something special since I'm about to pass 100 reviews with this story after only it's **6th** chapter. We'll see._

 _But for now, I'll see in two weeks with my first proper fight scene in far too long._

 _Bye._


	7. Chapter 7: Sever

**:**

 **\\_\\_/_/**

 **\\_\/_/**

 **\ _ /**

 **\/**

 **Vanguard**

 **Chapter 7**

 **Sever**

 _A/n: Sorry for the wait.  
_

 _Also, big thanks to Trav for helping me out with editing this chapter._

 _This is also the big fight chapter. I personally recommend listening to Billy Talent's Viking Death March, or Sabaton, or some other kind of Rock music._

* * *

 _Click_

He let out a breath with closed eyes.

 _Well, that's that._

"…Philip?"

Had he lacked his centuries of training and experience enduring the most trying of times, he would have jumped at the sudden intrusion of his silence.

Instead, he held it inside and cursed profusely, if briefly, in the privacy of his own head. Rubbing a tired hand over his face from the stress of it all, he opened his eyes and glanced at the woman looking curiously at him with a smug quirked brow.

It was the look of a woman who didn't know what she was looking at but knew she was going to find out.

 _Well…_ He thought, his eyes flitting around the very public room, _I probably shouldn't have done this here_

Letting out a breath, he let the issue go, _nothing for it now_

 _At least none of them speak Terran._

"My apologies, Carol," He said instead, "That was an associate of mine."

"Oh?" She smirked, "Cayde sounds like a fascinating fellow."

"Yes…he is," He grit his teeth, looking back the cellular phone in his hands.

To be frank, the black brick was little more than a prop. If he really wanted to talk to Cayde he didn't need something as archaic as the brick in his hands, and there was little anything in this timeline could realistically do to stop him. It took dedicated and advanced equipment from the various factions to have a hope of successfully doing so, and each faction was centuries, if not millennia, more advanced than anything here on earth.

With another exhale, this one the lightest of the three, he let the annoyance and stress flow out of him.

"Cayde and I served together," He explained, "He's a good man, but like all men, he is not perfect."

He allowed his face to twitch into a semblance of a grimace for a moment, "He can be…impulsive, reckless, dismissive, arrogant, and even selfish."

"Doesn't sound like a particularly good man to me," Carol remarked.

"No, I suppose he doesn't," He nodded.

"But…" He began, tapping his finger against his leg idly, "Beneath all that, I respect him. He's dedicated to the cause of the righteous in his own way. For all his snark he's a cunning tactician in his own right."

Then he snorted, much to her surprise, gesturing towards the board on the table, "You know, I have little doubt he'd be far better at this game than I am."

Athena, for her part, blinked in undisguised surprise. She considered Philip to be an expert and prodigy in strategy and tactics. He was articulate, well-read, and wise, all things she could respect. But, to see him admit to respecting someone else, to pointing to someone as being his _better?_

The idea of it just…boggled her. She couldn't' wrap her mind around it.

 _The Cayde cannot truly be this good, can he?_ _Otherwise, he would not ask Philip for advice._ She told herself, _But why would someone as great as Philip say this?_

"But…he asked you for advice?" She asked, trying not be too insulting. Mortals tended to react negatively to insults directed at their friends.

Zavala rubbed his chin as he moved back to his seat, trying to figure out the best way to put it. "Cayde is…"

He nodded, finally figuring the best way to put it. "Cayde is more focused on the small picture, looking at a narrow scope and the effects in the short term."

"Put him to a game like this," He said, tapping the wooden board, "And I have little doubt he'll work incredible miracles that will make your head spin."

"But," He added, raising a finger, "put him to work on something with a much broader scope, and longer goals…"

"…Such as making a city," He pointed out, gesturing out the window to the beautiful view of the campus and the city beyond. They could see the students outside going from class to class, the people on the streets going to work, shopping in the districts. People making a living, trading goods and services. They could even see the _USS Boxer_ moving in the bay.

"Well…that is more my area of expertise."

Looking at the city like this, a living _breathing_ city filled with people, untouched by the darkness was…refreshing. It reassured him of his purpose, grounded him.

He had to admit that he was glad that Cayde and Ikora had made him take time off. Seeing humanity again, even if it was before the Golden Age, thriving was a breath of fresh air.

 _This_ he thought proudly, _this is what I fight to protect._

Athena tapped her finger against the arm of the chair, considering what all Philip had just told her.

 _Interesting…_

She could see Philip being a man more about the long game. It explained a lot, really. She wasn't sure how she felt about it, though.

Well, that was a lie, she knew she liked it. She liked the idea of someone who considered thatlong-termm consequences of their actions. It was another piece of the puzzle that filled in what she knew of the man, and it was something she rarely found in mortals. Most of them had no vision, only seeing what was right before their noses.

For him to claim that he was a man about the big picture was very interesting indeed. Still, it was just a claim. She didn't have definitive proof of what he could do.

She had hints.

Oh did she have hints.

But it could all be wrong, it could _all_ simply be a ruse.

She doubted it, but it _was_ possibly, and as the goddess of Wisdom she would be remiss in her duties if she discarded the possibility of failure and disappointment.

But that wasn't the issue.

The issue was that she wasn't sure how to respond to the other revelations.

Namely his friend.

 _Should I test him too?_ She considered, weighing the costs and benefits.

 _Hmm…probably not_ She decided, _at least, not right now._

 _While he might be interesting, I still have yet to put together the puzzle that is Philip. Cayde might have other clues, but he might also present a whole new puzzle that would suck me in, and it wouldn't do to work on too many at once._

 _Then I'd be little more than a rabid dog, snapping at all the prey in sight, but all the while never getting a single one._

So instead, she pushed that matter to the side, and decided to focus on the more relevant position.

 _Phillip Zavala_ She smirked, looking at the man who was drinking in the sights of the city with hungry eyes, _who did you fight, and where did you learn that tongue?_

She knew she could probably flex her divine muscles, metaphorically speaking, and found out by taking it from the government that commanded him.

She _could_

But she wouldn't.

To do that would feel like…cheating. And not the proper kind, no, this was the kind where the only one you cheated was yourself. If she peaked at his files, well, that'd just give the game away, wouldn't it? No more puzzle to solve, no more pieces to place, she'd know everything.

And where was the fun in that?

 _Oh no_ she thought, opening her mouth as she began to invite him for another cup of coffee.

 _He's a puzzle I want to unravel all by myself._

* * *

Lara loved puzzles.

This was a fact.

A fact that many knew well. Another well-known fact was that she abhorred violence. Ask any one of her friends, and they'd tell you that she detests it with all her heart.

Except, perhaps, one of them.

Cayde supposed it was an easy mistake for most to make.

It's probably helped by the fact that such an assumption would fall in line with most people's moral compass. A kind of confirmation bias, if you will. They want to believe that Lara hates violence, so they notice all the signs that she does.

But Cayde, despite what some might say, was far from a fool.

He was old, _very_ old. He's seen his way through dark and light, seen some of the nastiest men in the world and some of the kindest souls in existence.

So, when he looked at Lara, he didn't see a girl that hated violence.

Oh no.

As he saw Lara take the spear she'd fashioned from an arrow head wreathed in Greek Fire and an oar, and shove it into the chest of a Draugr, he knew that she only hated _how much she loved it_.

She wasn't as bad as Dregden Yor, she didn't love to kill. Instead, she loved the rush of battle, no matter how much she told herself she didn't.

She wasn't a monster, she was just scared of becoming one.

It was a situation that Cayde couldn't say that he was entirely unsympathetic towards.

He saw her duck under the swing of the second Draugr, darting backwards out of reach. The old creatures, surprisingly quick, ran forward, trying to rush her, but the narrow corridors of the ship gave them little room to maneuver, while funneling them all right into Lara's reach.

She jabbed the first one coming at her right under its guard, hitting it in the leg with the burning tip. The fire immediately consumed the leg, causing the monster to stumble and lose it's balance, holding back the one behind it.

In that moment, the first one lost its balance and the second one was forced to stop, she took her chance and thrust the flaming spear with all her might, impaling the two of them upon her makeshift lance.

Just as a third tried to ambush her from behind, having used the side passages to flank, she slammed the butt of the oar into it. The spry thing managed to twist out of the way, using the momentum to strike at her with the axe.

Not wasting a moment, Lara dropped the spear and rolled under the swing. As she came up on the opposite side of the Draugr she whipped out her climbing axe from her side in one swift moment. As the undead creature spun to cave her head in with it's axe, she deftly parried with her tool, hooking its axe with her own's hooked "blade", and forcefully twisted it out of its hands.

As the Draugr's axe clattered to the ground behind them, Lara slammed her shoulder into its chest, tackling it to the ground. Once there, she slammed her climbing axe into its chest with all her might, the axe puncturing all the way through the creature's meager armor, rotted flesh, and even bone, before finally coming to a stop after embedding itself within the deck itself, pinning the beast there like a nail.

The creature lunged up at her, trying to tear at her with its own two hands, but Lara was too quick for it, darting away once more with the speed of a cricket. With her opponent pinned to the ground before her, Lara took the opportunity to pick up the spear by her side once more and thrust the fiery tip into the head of the rasping monster.

With the last beast dead, Lara unceremoniously jerked the spear out of its head, before yanking her axe out of its chest.

 _Goddamn, does she have talent_ He smiled.

"Damn, girl," He whistled, "You cleaned up pretty good."

"Oh, well, you know, I might not have wasted so much time if someone had _helped_." She snarked sarcastically, throwing him a withering glare.

She didn't mean it.

…Probably.

"Nah, you had that." Cayde dismissed.

" 'Sides," He shrugged, "Bullets are expensive."

"I've seen you make bullet out of thin air." Lara said flatly.

"Ah, but that wasn't cheap." Cayde remarked.

"You're a goddamn wizard." Lara said, exasperated, "For god's sake, I've seen what you can do with a knife."

"True…" Cayde acknowledged, rubbing his chin in thought as he considered some of his greatest feats with a knife that she got to see.

"…Would you believe me if I said I just wanted you to get the experience?" He finally said

She gave him an unamused stare, before finally letting out a sigh and saying, "At least you're not coddling me."

It was things like this that told Cayde how much she really loved fighting. Lara didn't like killing. He hadn't seen her do it too much, and while she _did_ jump to it kind of fast the times he did, to be fair they _had_ shot first.

With a rocket.

It's kind of hard to de-escalate from there.

But, no, as far as he could tell Lara simply loved fighting. It's not a surprise, she was damn good at it. It's hard to hate something you're that good at, and it's hard to be that good at something you hate.

"So how's the spear working out for you?" He asked.

Lara frowned, giving the spear a long look, before she finally broke it over her knee two feet down it's length.

The result was that she now had something of a long spike with a fiery blue tip, as opposed to the makeshift spear.

"It was too long." She said, "It was far too big for me to properly maneuver it around in these tight corridors."

"It also keeps them from maneuvering." Cayde pointed out.

"Not enough," She shook her head. "They can still twist out of the way or deflect it. Considering I couldn't even turn the damn thing around properly, it was more of a problem for me than for them."

"Alight, makes sense," He finally nodded.

"Anyways," Lara said, switching topics, "Shouldn't you be heading off to your own ship?" She asked.

"Ah, right!" He perked up, suddenly remembering the reason he had followed her, "I forgot to give you something."

Her brow crinkled as she gave him an odd look, puzzle by what he meant.

"It's not much," He said, digging into his coat with his left hand, "But it's better than nothing."

"Think of it as a loan."

* * *

"The hell is this blasted thing?"

"I believe it's a shotgun, Captain."

The man with a grey beard scoffed, shifting the gun in his hands. "Some bloody new age fancy shit." He cursed in Finnish.

The man behind him chuckled to himself silently, "Maybe you're just due for an upgrade, old man," He responded in kind with a thick German accent.

Charles was a simple German man. Paranoid, perhaps, but simple. He did his duty to his country, and now he just wanted to retire peacefully with his family. Preferably far from some of the enemies in the country that might be out for his blood.

That was the whole reason he had taken this more unorthodox method to head out to Finland. He knew the language, he'd been teaching Hilde, and their daughter would pick it up quickly enough.

Sure, some people might have thought that he was retiring a bit early, he was only 32 after all. Well most people hadn't gotten shot three times and stabbed twice in four raids. He'd been all but ordered to retire after that. There wasn't a damn person in the force that didn't respect him, but everyone agreed that he was walking trouble magnet and he probably wouldn't last another 5 years in the force before something finally did him in.

So here he was.

On his way to a nice sedate life in Finland living off his pension and raising his daughter. Far from any excitement.

Then this shit happened.

Suddenly a door in front of them slammed open. A large Draugr that towered a whole head higher than either of them sauntered out, a two-handed axe held in its withered arms. Its head twisted to give them a baleful blue gaze filled with hate an-

 _ **Boom**_

And suddenly, now lacking a head or much of an upper body, the burning remains of its corpse fell to the ground bonelessly. The deck and walls behind it were sprayed with a black ichor that seemed to be these creature's variation of blood.

The captain, an old man with a white beard and nearly bald head, spat on the thing in contempt.

"At least it kills the bastards," He remarked, racking the pump.

The gun in his hands was, at a glance, normal to a layman. To the two of them, there were some odd things about it. First off, while it was a gunmetal grey, there was an odd symbol painted on the barrel that somewhat resembled a large orange V with the gap filled in with white.

The bigger issue, of course, was the fact that, upon further analysis, they didn't know what it did. Oh, sure, many of the basic parts were familiar, the tube magazine, the barrel, the pump, and even the stock looked normal. But the receiver was heavily modified, and there were all sorts of additions they didn't really know what to make of.

What they did know was that the thing did not take 12 gauge shells. Best guess, they were 8 gauge, which was far from a normal size, and should kick like a mule. Despite that, the recoil was manageable. It was there, but it wasn't in danger of breaking anyone's arm. Plus the spread seemed to adjust depending on how far the target was.

Up close, it had a wide spread, all but obliterating them. At long range, it was more like a densely-packed cloud that punched through them. Charles was working on the theory that it was some kind smart choke that adjusted itself based on the range to target. Nifty, but he wasn't really one for shotguns, himself.

The strange American had given it to the Captain, handing out guns to all the ones he deemed liable not to shoot themselves with it. Smart, considering normal firearms barely did shit against these monster, but strange considering he appeared to be able to just pull an endless stream from out of his coat.

Cayde, as the man had introduced himself, had said he was a Warlock.

Charles, as was said earlier, was a simple man. He didn't believe in magic. But that was before the dead had risen from the waves to take the ship.

After that, he was willing to believe in fucking fairies.

And while something in the American's voice gave Charles the impression he was joking, being able to summon guns from nowhere wasn't exactly normal.

But as Charles shouldered the rifle in his hands, a gun that, at a glance, resembled a modified M4 carbine with a wooden stock and a kind of reflex sight, he found he didn't care too much.

All he needed was a cause to fight for, an enemy to eliminate, and a weapon to strike with.

Everything else was just execution.

* * *

Lara was finding that sneaking out of the cargo ship was easier than she thought.

The next part, however, was much harder.

Unlike the massive cargo ship, the vessel that had sailed up next to them was much smaller. While the cargo vessel towered over it, forcing the Draugr to use ladders to get up, this didn't help her much when the thing she had to destroy was all the way down there, something she'd have to destroy up close and personal.

Compounding the problem was the fact that not only was it a long way down, but the ship only had one deck. Once she was on there, there was no hiding. Especially not from the four very large and well-armed Draugr guarding the glowing blue rock.

 _Come on, think Lara_ she frowned as she peeked over the edge, knowing there had to be way to do this.

 _Smarter, not harder_.

Going down the ladder to face them all would be suicide, they'd see her coming from a mile away and she lacked the means to reasonably pick them off.

Not to mention her experiences in Yamatai and Kitezh had taught her to avoid direct confrontation whenever she could.

A shiver went down her back as she remembered the Lost City, buried under the ice. It was cold there, colder than it was out here, but the chilly air still reminded her of the bloody place. The biting winds, freezing water, and ice and snow for as far as the eye could see. The valley was a paradise in the middle of a frosted hell.

 _It's easy to see why Jacob built a city there_ she smiled fondly.

Then her eyes widened and her mind ran wild as she spotted something very special. Realization and innovation slammed into her like a freight train, setting her mind ablaze with what felt like an obvious discovery as possibility after possibility coursed through it.

Unbeknownst to Lara, a smirk slowly crawled its way onto her pale face.

She ran over to the object discarded onto the ground.

It was a bow. An old, ancient, and rotting bow next to some ashes that had likely been a Draugr at some point, but it was still a bow.

Grinning, she swept it up into her hands, pulling back the string to test the weight. Finding it to her satisfaction, she nocked her one and only arrow into a casual place.

She ran back to the edge of the ship, looking back down to the boat below to make sure she had her angle just right. She stepped back, pulled back the string, took careful aim.

And let the burning blue arrow fly high.

She was gone before the arrow reached the peak of its arc.

 _I've got you now_

* * *

 _Now this is more like it_

Cayde could admit that he'd been getting a little bored. He wouldn't dare mention it to Zavala or Ikora because he knew that they'd bring up his decades being the Hunter Vanguard in the city, and that was just…

Cayde shivered, _I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy_

Still, at first going around shooting things again had been fun.

Finally, after nearly half a century sitting on his ass, he finally got to go out and do stuff. Sure, there was the occasional time he got his hands dirty, like Taniks and Oryx, but the rest of the time he had to do organizational stuff.

And paperwork.

By the Traveler's Light, the paperwork.

The worst part was despite the fact that A, he was a walking supercomputer, and B, there was no actual paper involved anymore, he was _still_ swamped in it.

Cayde wasn't sure if it was ironic or just sad that of all the things to survive the Collapse, the term paperwork was one of them.

But that was the past/future, He was finally back to doing stuff on earth. Getting boots on the ground and getting his hands dirty. It was refreshing, it was rejuvenating, it was…

It was boring.

The shiny novelty of being able to do things again wore off after the first year or so.

Now, that wasn't to say it was all boring, he still got to explore a new culture and all the aspect within. He was doing his job as a scout as only he could.

There were just two problems with that.

There wasn't really much of anything…new. Sure, in it's own way, everything was new to him. But it wasn't new to _them_. The best way he could describe it was going to a new city. Sure, everything felt new to you, but everything you 'discovered' had already been found by someone before you. You were just playing catchup.

There wasn't the same thrill of discovery as when you found a centuries old Golden Age compound, hidden in the undergrowth. It didn't give you the same rush was when you navigated through the traps and defenses, hoping beyond hope that maybe, just maybe, this place might have something useful.

And the absolute _surge_ that you got when you cracked open that last door, and found a treasure inside that made it all worth it.

Instead, it was just…learning the lay of the land where many men had been before.

Cool, fun, but…just not the same.

The second problem was, well, the stakes.

Here, everything was relatively safe. They didn't even have darkness, at least not in any meaningful measure, which meant they probably didn't have a single thing that could put him down permanently. They didn't even really have much that could put him down at all. It was all just so easy for him.

There were a couple big guys that were a challenge, but if Cayde was being honest that was mostly because he was holding back by a large margin. Like that big lion thing he fought. It had been something of a tough fight, but that was mostly because he only used his knife and his Ace of Spades.

One or two Golden Gun shots and Cayde was confident it'd be dead all the same. Hell, a grenade in the mouth would have been trivial to pull off. He doubted it would have been able to stand a trip mine going off in its gut.

The fact that they couldn't really kill him and he could kill them far too easily was all made worse by the fact that there wasn't that impending sense of doom hanging over him, that sense of desperation, that humanity was one step away from being wiped off the board.

But here?

Now?

As he spun out of the way of another axe cleaving through the air in his place, popping off three shots of his hand cannon, drawing a knife in his left hand to parry the backswing of the axe he just dodged, he could honestly say that he felt _alive_.

He jumped towards the wall, evading another strike from a Draugr that was far too close for comfort. The undead thing spun to face him, aggressively pressing him with its axe in hand.

And was met with a barrel shoved right in it's face.

The loud retort of the Ace of Spades caused it's head to detonate in a burst of golden light that washed over Cayde's form.

Not wasting time on celebration, he jumped backward, using his light to give his boots a firm hold on the wall, and diving under a second axe flying by his body. He landed on the deck right behind a second Draugr before shoving his knife into the base of the thing's skull. It ignited in his golden flames, burning to ash as it fell to the ground.

 _Three down_ , He thought, standing back up straight, _and only 18 more to go_ He thought, looking down the long hallway filled with Draugr.

The swarmed the corridors, their numbers more than enough to swamp any normal gunfire.

To Cayde, it was a golden opportunity.

The lights of the hallway all burst in a fit of sparks, bathing the hallway in complete darkness. The hungry blue eyes of the Draugr closing in the only source of light.

And then the corridor of darkness was cracked open by the blinding light of a small star. The burning light blazed brightly, ruthlessly, and relentlessly. The metal deck, walls, and ceiling around it began to melt, warp, and even glow under the extreme temperature. The Draugr stumbled for just a moment, hit with a wave of _heat_.

And in the center of it all, Cayde stood, Ace of Spades at the ready.

At first, there was no sound, only light.

Only an almighty wall of light.

Then came the sound.

 _ **THOOM!**_

On the other side of the ship, a blinding spear of light exploded out of the wall, flying off into the distance before slowly dissipating. In it's wake, a massive tunnel of molten metal had been burrowed through several dozen meters of hull plating. The still glowing metal sagged and pulled towards the bottom, hissing loudly as the cool fog came into contact with the molten slag.

And behind it all stood Cayde, looking on at the destruction.

"...huh."

He deactivated the Golden Gun with but a thought, the Solar Light dissipating and collapsing back in on him.

"I should probably be more careful with that." He said, beginning to strut forward.

Back in his own timeline, his Golden was still powerful. He knew this. The problem was, he didn't have a proper sense of scale with old pre-golden age vessels.

 _I thought it was just going to barrel through all the Draugr and leave the ship fine_ He thought. As he stopped before the pool in front of him, he looked down.

 _I guess not_.

He shrugged, before putting his foot forward. Rather than have his foot sink into the pool he used his light to condense the air under him, allowing it to act like a solid in relation to his body.

It didn't act like a strong solid, certainly nothing strong enough to stop anything that might actually hurt him, but it was strong enough to hold his weight. Using the hunter Double Jump technique like this was pretty difficult. Figuring out how to double jump at all was usually all most hunters got to. They might be able to put more power into it to jump farther, and some managed to have enough control to and one or two more jumps before they had to re-stabilize.

But the veterans? The old Hunters that had been mastering their craft for over a century?

The knew the secret of Air Walking.

 _...I should probably hurry up_ Cayde considered.

Then he nodded, and _moved_.

In just three steps he flew across the river of steel and over the side of the ship. He halted his speed immediately by forming an air platform in front of him and flipping to land feet first on it. The momentum of his speed kept up with him, the force of 12 G's attempting to crush him, but he ignored it easily. For a moment, he just hung there in the air. Quickly spotting the Draugr ship below him, he flexed his legs and shot towards it.

He slammed into the wooden deck of the ship with a loud crack, wood splintering and fracturing all around him, but the boat remained whole.

A flash of movement out of the corner of his eye and Cayde rolled the the side, a massive blacked axe biting deeply into the wood in his place. His instincts blared and he whirled around, twirling a knife in his hands.

He parried a smaller hand axe aimed at his back. He moved to fire his gun into the thing's gut, but another axe came flying at him from the side, forcing him to parry with it. For a brief second he engaged in a small duel with the Draugr in front of him.

Unlike the other Draugr it had blackened and rotting flesh, rather than the taught nearly skeletal appearance. A black pus oozed out of lacerations in it's skin, angry blue flames fiercely raging in each of the holes in it's helmet. It wore dark, rusted, and blackened chainmail armor with sopping wet and mud encrusted furs mixed in. It held two axes in it's hands, both of a similar design with intricate, yet rusted, designs carved into the heads.

 _Some kind of Major_ he thought, deflecting an axe with the barrel of his gun before moving to slam the butt of it into the creature's helmet. It deftly moved out of the way, twisting just enough in order to avoid the gun, and in just the right way to power another axe flying to his side, one he parried with a knife.

This one was faster, stronger, and more skilled than any of the other Draugr he fought.

But it wasn't good enough.

Deflecting the axe with a quick parry of his knife he used a burst of speed to quickly slash it across the chest of the undead being. The armor somehow managed to keep his light-enhanced blade from completely slicing the thing in half, but the burning blade still managed to leave a deep burning gash running from hip to shoulder.

The creature stumbled back for a moment, all Cayde needed. He drew his gun up and f-

He was forced to dodge to the right when an axe crashed into his place again.

 _Dammit_ , he cursed, looking over the deck again.

There were three of them, three elite Draugr. One held two axes, another one great axe, and another bore shield and sword.

In that instant, Cayde denoted the first a Berserker, the second a Raider, and the third a Warlord.

The third one rushed him with a rusted black shield held first. Cayde tried to dart to the left under and behind the shield, keeping out reach of the sword in its grasp. The undead warrior responded by smashing his shield into Cayde's position. Cayde darted back, out of reach, but found himself one step from falling off the boat.

Before he had time to think about it, the shielded one pushed forward again, his round shield leading the way. Cayde didn't have a clear shot to his body, so he tried to shoot it's foot. While the thing's toe exploded in a burst of black gore, it only gave him an angry grunt of pain.

It gave a rebuttal to his attack in the form of a sword thrust. Rather than giving Cayde a massive opening, the warrior angled the shield to cover the extended arm. Left with little choice, he darted under the sword arm, trying to flank to the thing's unprotected side.

He was met with that two-handed axe swung toward his face.

In a burst of instinct driven reaction he jumped, flying backwards over the edge of the boat.

He landed on the surface of the water with his Air Walking, and gazed back towards the ship.

The three stood looking back at him, the glowing crystal behind them.

"Well...shit." he cursed. While none of them were, on their own at least, good enough to match him for more than a few moments at best, they covered each other. They weren't just brutes, they were trained warriors who worked as a team. Any time he managed to get an advantage over one of them, the other would fly in to cover them.

He took a couple shots at them, but the shielded one dashed in front of them. His shield flashed with some kind of blue rune covering it, and the shots were deflected into far off directions. He would have just blown up the crystal, but a simple glance told him it was made of something similar to the Source, something that was tougher than Relic Iron, and would require more than a couple rounds from the Ace of Spades to crack the thing open.

 _Quite the predicament._

And then Cayde did something he hadn't done in far too long.

He laughed.

He laughed a deep, powerful, laugh right from his soul, not the light, bitter, sarcastic, or even joking laughs he'd done before.

"Oh man," He began, reloading the Ace of Spades, "You guys are _good_."

"I like that," He admitted, the cylinder of the revolved clicking shut, "it's been far too long since I had a real challenge. You're even tougher than that damn lion I had to fight."

"This is what I _live_ for!" He exclaimed, his arms spread wide.

And then he disappeared in a flash.

He Blinked into position back four meters above the ship, before throwing himself back down behind the three of them.

They were upon him in moments.

What followed next was a brutal up close melee. His Ace of Spades discarded for another knife, he parried, deflected, and cut wherever he could. It was a close fight, several times the blackened blade of the enemy ran across his shields when he wasn't quite fast enough.

But then, as a whisper quiet hum developed in the air, the end approached.

As the Raider's blade descended, as the Warlord's sword thrust forward, and as the Berserker's axe approached, it arrived.

 _ **BA-THOOM!**_

With a blinding flash of light and the deafening blast of thunder, the three were forced back.

In between all of them stood Cadye, wreathed in arcs of blinding blue lightning crackling over his form.

Then he _twitched_

And he _moved._

His movements were like flashes of lightning, over in an instant and carving through the air itself. The Elite Draugr tried to counter him, and with all their skill and strength they managed to put up a worthy attempt.

But they couldn't hope to truly keep up.

He dashed through and around them, his blades making blue cracks in the sky as they passed by, the high energy temporarily turning the air to plasma if only for an instant. He Passed through flesh, iron, and bone with all the same ease as it cut the sky.

The left arm of the Raider flew off his shoulder before Cayde's blade plunged into his heart. Lines of Arc Light traveled across his body in an instant, before flash vaporizing him and leaving nothing left but ash.

One knife cut a molten line through the shield of the Warlord, before his second blade embedded itself into the back of it's skull. Another flash of light, and it was just ashes.

In another burst of movement, both knives worked in tandem, slicing and slashing through the flesh of the Berserker. The first slice of the hand, the second cut of a wrist, the third slice through the shoulder completely, and fourth severed the other arm. In a brief instant of peace as Cayde drew each blade back, his charged Sapphire eyes met the azure flames of his enemy.

Then each blade plunged into the Berserker's shoulder on either side of it's neck. Cayde drove each blade through it's body, carving two massive burning lines through his body, cutting him from neck to groin.

It fell to the ground in pieces, his body turning to ash from the residual Arc Light.

Turning towards the crystal, Cayde shoved his blade into the heart of the thing, and discharged the last bursts of Arc Light into the unholy creation. Cracks formed upon its structure before it could take no more.

It exploded, throwing him back and sending a blue pulse through the air. Moments later he stood back over, looking over the blackened crater where it once stood.

 _Well, that's one down_

* * *

 _Two to go_

On the other side of the ship on a very similar boat a little over a minute ago, three Draugr when suddenly, an arrow flew down from out of the night sky, it's blazing form puncturing the wooden deck and imbedding itself into the old oak planks. Immediately three pairs of burning blue eyes shot up, looking around with all the attention and dedication of a wizened warrior.

But there was nothing to see.

Finally, after a tense moment, they moved on.

In the black darkness of the foggy night air on the boat, the only light upon the boat was blue. The crystal gave off a soft, yet unnerving glow. The eyes of the Draugr similarly shone in the darkness, but cast little light on the area. But the arrow burned brightly and defiantly with a cerulean flame that flickered in the cold Baltic wind, but remained strong.

One of the Elite Draugr marched over to the arrow, his sword in one hand and shield in the other. His steps slow and measured as he approached the edge of the boat. When he arrived, he raised his boot high, ready to snuff out the last fire burning in the crushing empty darkness.

When a spike of carbon hardened steel punched through his shin.

Before he could react it dragged him off the boat and down into the cold depths of the water below.

Still caught off guard, the undead rotting corpse of a man tried to struggle, but another spike plunged into his heart before wrenching it's way out of his chest, leaving a gaping hole all that remained. One leg torn at below the knee and half his chest ripped off, he was pushed away into the deep dark depths.

Lara took his sword from his grasp, taking a moment to pop up for air a ways away from the boat, and getting another look at the other two guards. She sheathed the blade in her belt, before diving back under the water and moving back to the boat. Waiting under the waterline with baited breath, she searched for her moment.

And then, seeing it, she lunged, hand grasping the lip of the boat as her climbing axe reached forward, digging into the back of the Draugr's leg.

But here is where it all went wrong.

A spear plunged through the water. Lara just barely managed to slip around it, but in her distraction a slick and decrepit hand wrapped around her arm. It ripped her out of the water and threw her bodily onto the deck, knocking the wind out of her.

Lara gasped for breath for a moment, desperately trying to suck in air, her lungs begging for mercy. Forcing herself to act through sheer force of will and instinct forged from years of life and death circumstances, she rolled out of the way of an axe cleaving into the deck.

And as she took the briefest moment to look over her situation, she found it to be quite grim indeed.

Before her stood two Elite Draugr, one bearing the great form of a Dane Axe, a powerful viking weapon wielded with two hands by a large giant in chainmail in front of her.. Next to it was another, this one leaner, slimmer, and carrying a shield and spear. Each bore signs of cultural significance and weaponsmithing beyond the simple mass production of simple weapons. The Dane axe bore engravings and a simple, but elaborate design inside the axe head. The spear bore signs of pattern welding, an involved and older method of creating stronger steel. And both seemed to have runes etched into it that began to glow dully with the same unnatural light of the crystal.

With her climbing axe still embedded in the leg of the Raider, Lara drew the sword she had sheathed in her belt. Giving it a cursory glance she saw the similar runes etched onto as the other two. It sent an unnerving shiver down her back to look at, let alone to hold, but Lara grit her teeth and pushed through it. All the while the spear wielder slowly circled to the right of her.

The Raider approached her, the climbing axe in his leg slowing him down, but he muscled through all the same.

Suddenly, her instincts screaming, she spun out of the way, a spear lancing through the space she once occupied with such speed that it managed to clip Lara's jacket. Seeing a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye, she darted back, narrowly avoid a stroke of the axe cleaving through the air where her legs once stood.

Without even giving her a moment to catch her breath, a force collided with her back, sending her stumbling forwards where an axe flew to meet her. She managed to duck under the swing, but before she could counter she was forced to twist out of the way of the spear darting forwards. It had just managed to tear through the same area of her jacket as she narrowly avoided the tip when the axe's backswing arrived.

Lara barely managed to bring her guard up enough to deflect the blade. The weight and force of the axe crashing against her stolen sword and making her muscles scream in protest under the strain.

She stepped back in an attempt to get more breathing room and turned to deflect another thrust of the spear. She could feel it each time the spear scrapped along the flat of the old blade in her hands, all the while she tried to keep the lumbering form of the Raider in the corner of her eye.

Then, a mistake.

The next step the giant took, the bone in his leg, still impaled with her climbing axe, cracked and fractured loudly under his weight, causing him to stumble just as Lara deflected another thrust of the spear.

Seizing the opportunity, Lara turned and rushed forward, slashing her sword across his chest. Lara's eyes went wide as the blade simply slid off the chainmail armor of the giant, doing nothing more than polishing it. Desperate and undeterred she ducked under the Raider's next swing, and slipped behind him. She tried to thrust her blade into the armpit of the undead warrior, but it just pushed against the chain mail.

Before she even had time to despair, an arm built like a rotting log crashed into her, dazing her. A thick, meaty, and rotting hand wrapped itself around her neck, choking the life out of her and bringing her up to meet its face. She looked into the eyes of the undead creature in front of her, gazing into those glowing orbs.

In it she saw the unnatural, the undead, the thing that should not be.

And she saw the torment of a man that hadn't been allowed to die.

Then he slammed her into the deck of the ship, making every bone in her body creak in protest. In her daze he whipped his axe at her again. She brought up the sword up in a sloppy and desperate attempt to parry.

The instant the heavy blow of the axe met the edge of the sword her blade _shattered._ Fragments of of old steel flew exploded everywhere as the top half of the blade was sheared off, leaving only a jagged stump remaining.

Not even bother to blink, the Raider looming over her brought his blade up for the backswing. In that moment, as his unwavering blue gaze looked into her, she could feel as if death itself was hovering over her, waiting for her executioner to land the final swing. She could feel the cold pool of dread inside her as its hand waited patiently on her shoulder, ready for the moment when it would take her to her maker.

 _Is this the end?_ She thought with wide eyes, seeing the gleam of the blade as it reached its peak, ready to swing down in with blinding speed she couldn't hope to dodge. That dread and fear filling almost every inch of her being.

 _No_

But it couldn't snuff out the final spark in her. The spark in her that let her endure the horrors of Yamatai, from the time she had to struggle out of a cannibal's den, to the time she saved Sam from the grasps of a goddess. The unrelenting fire inside her that let her fight through the crushing cold of Kitezh, from killing a bear to taking on the army responsible for her father's death with little more than her axe and bow.

It was the will to survive.

And in that moment, when certain death came calling once more, it screamed _NO_

Energy sprung up from wells deep within her, sending her exploding into action. She lunged forward, her shattered blade in hand, and _acted_.

She grabbed onto the right hand of the undead giant, pulling herself forward, before she plunged the jagged tip of the sword into the arm of the Raider. Unprotected by the chainmail, the blade sunk in like the fangs of a wolf, biting dep and digging in. With strength she had no right to posses she dragged the blade down his arms, tearing open a massive gaping rip in it's putrid flesh, causing a black viscous pus to pour out.

The Raider roared in agony, dropping it's axe in pain. It tried to retaliate by throwing a punch with it's left fist, throwing a hard hook at her. She reacted by pulling the broken blade out and thrusting it in the way of the punch. The strength of the giant's arm drove his fist _onto_ the blade, forcing the blade to sink in deep between his knuckles and tearing through bone and muscle.

The black blood of the dead rained down on her as he roared in agony, but she pushed through it all as she reached down and wrenched her axe out of the Draugr's leg. Pulling back, she aimed carefully, before letting out a cry of rage and sending it's hardened tip swinging straight towards his head.

The tip slammed straight into it's eye, causing the ball of blood and flesh to burst, and continued to ram through. It pierced out of the back of it's skull, penetrating through it's rotting and enchanted brain. Using the leverage of the axe, Lara twisted herself and her weapon. The torque wrench, stretched, and broke the bones, ligaments, and muscles in the undead monster. With a wet, crunchy, ripping sound, the head of the Raider was torn off and sent flying into the dark depths of the sea and showering her in it's black fluids.

The Raider's body went limp, falling to it's knees. Taking a breath, Lara relaxed fractionally, reveling in her victory for only a moment. Here, is where she made her mistake.

 _Shlink_

Pain exploded in her abdomen. She gasped out in shock, looking down to see a pole sticking out from the chest of the deceased Raider and into her gut, just below her ribs.

With another wet sound the spear was pulled from her chest. Before her, the giant's body fell to reveal the form of the spear wielding Draugr. She fell to her knees, energy leaking out of her much like her blood. She looked up at her attacker with some degree of shock, and found it looking down at her with something she could have sworn was anger.

 _Her_ , she realized, idly noticing from the Draugr's bone visible bone structure that it was, in fact, a female.

 _Huh,_ she thought, looking up at the rotting black female warrior's form. Time slowed to a crawl as it raised her spear to finish her off, the glowing crystal shining an ethereal blue light upon her from, _looking at like this, she kind of looks like a unholy Valkyrie_.

And it was in this time that her mind turned back to the past.

" _Cayde"_ She had once asked. _"Why do you run so much?"_

" _Excuse me?" He recoiled, taken off guard by the insult._

" _Er, I mean," Lara stumbled with her words. "You're a much better fighter than I am, but you still run from fights a lot."_

" _Why don't you just blitz your way through?"_

" _Eh," He shrugged, "It's too much trouble sometimes. I mean, why waste bullets when you don't have to?"_

 _She paused, biting her lip nervously, "What if you can't run?"_

Lara's strength had all but failed her. She could barely stand, certainly not in time to fight, much less run.

" _Well, if I can't run, I guess I'll have to fight it." He answered, "I do that often enough, it's not really a problem."_

" _What if you can't beat it?" Lara asked, getting to the root of the problem._

She wanted to get up and fight, she wanted to fight on until the end, to _survive_.

But she had given it all she had, and it wasn't enough. Death stood above her now. The undead Valkyrie standing ready to bring her to soul to the afterlife. She couldn't fight her way out, she couldn't best the warrior standing before her. Not with her wounds.

It seemed this was to be the end.

" _What if I can't beat it?" He repeated, surprised, his brow raising to his hairline._

" _Yeah," She repeated, "What if it's some challenge you can't surpass?"_

" _But you can't run" She added._

" _Why not?" he asked_

" _Because...maybe there's no way out, or there's something you have to protect." She ventured._

 _He let out a bark of laughter tinged with something Lara couldn't quite identify, "Something to protect?" He repeated._

" _Well..." He tapped his chin_

Her hand twitched nervously as the rotten warrior moved to finish her off.

She could feel her heart thundering in her chest, her adrenaline racing through her body, the cold sweat on her fingers.

" _I guess there's only one out of it."_

And as the spear reached it's peak, as the rotten Valkrie's body tensed, it's blackened and putrid muscles straining as it lunged, the final move was made.

And her time came to an end.

" _Cheat"_

 _ **BZZZRT**_

With a flash of movement and a three-part staccato of electrified energy, three balls of lightning hit the Draugr that was to be her doom. The Valkyrie stopped, stunned by the pain as the balls of plasma and Arc Light burned her rancid flesh and rusted mail. She screamed in agony as arcs of electric blue lightning surged across her form.

Then, in another bright flash of light, the Valkyrie disintegrated in thin air, bursting into so much ash.

Lara's breaths came out in harsh panting breaths, her arm holding the gift Cayde had given her.

" _I got it from an old lady friend of mine. Make sure you treat it right."_

It was a gun. A strange, inhuman, gun. It was fashioned from brown metal and sprouting grey spikes. Strange designs having an almost tribal accent to them were scrawled along what passed for a barrel and the leather wrapped grip.

She might have stopped to stare in wonder at the fact that she'd just vaporized a Draugr. She might have taken a moment to rejoice about that fact that she was still alive. She might have paused to thank Cayde for providing the instrument of her salvation.

She might have even thanked God.

But she had work to do.

She grit her teeth, groaning in pain, but reached for the spear on the deck, once used by her most recent foe. She picked it up, hand gripped near the spear head, and held her arrow in the other hand. She applied the burning shaft of the arrow to the steel head of the spear.

For some reason, Greek Fire she made didn't actually burn her. In light of what she'd seen, she chalked it up to magic.

 _I think I need a better name for it than Greek Fire_ She thought, watching as the steel slowly began to heat up to a glow.

So, while the Greek Fire of the arrow couldn't be used for this purpose _directly_ , it _could_ be used to heat up the steel in the spearhead to do it instead. The heat of Greek Fire was more than enough to melt through steel when properly applied.

Sure enough, in moments, the head of the spear was glowing white at the tip with heat.

She took a breath, _just like Yamatai_

And applied it to the wound.

She screamed as pure, burning, raging, agony ripped it's way through her. The pain threatened to make her black out, but just like before, just like she's always done, she managed to hold on.

Fighting through the pain like a wolf fights to survive, she struggled to her feet. With the wound closed, she had one last task to do.

She looked at the Crystal hovering before her, a strange unnerving chime humming in time with the glow, all of it pulsing like some kind of heart. She gripped the spear tightly in her hands, before she shoved the molten tip into the center of the unnatural rock.

As it's frame cracked and fractured, large lines breaking across it's entire frame. Finally, it exploded, sending another pulse of blue light flying through the air in a wave that filled Lara with a strange buzzing sensation. She was thrown back, her whole world going white with pain.

And then it all went black.

* * *

"Well?"

"Well," She began, taking a sip of her drink, "it's live"

"We've just accomplished our first step in curing cancer."

She was met with a loud round of applause, eliciting a smile from her lips.

To some, if they saw the room, they might have called it the lair of a supervillain.

Considering it was the room of Ikora's inner sanctum, that might not have been inaccurate.

"Holy shit, we're gonna be fucking _rich_ ," One young boy said.

"That's hardly the point, James,"

"Duchess, Baron." Ikora said evenly over her glass of wine.

They both had the courtesy to look sheepish.

"Sorry Empress/Apologies Empress" They both said.

Ikora smiled, not surprised at their slipup, considering who they were.

Ikora was currently standing in the research facility for the Ishtar Collective. Due to their small size, it was also their current Headquarters. The building had been built from the ground up with Ikora's intentions in mind, making it work for both purposes just fine.

But more than that, it had been designed with the idea that the Ishtar Collective would grow much, much, bigger.

But as of now, it was only one 5 story building roughly the size of a hospital. The interior and exterior used sloping, smooth, and curved modern lines to give a sense that when one entered the building, they stepped into the future. It had a basic, inviting, white design, with different colored LED highlights in different areas to denote their purpose. At present, that just meant green and yellow for health and disease, but the trend would follow as they grew. But one section of the building had a very different color scheme.

Black.

5 stories below the surface and found nowhere on any of the official, and many unofficial, plans for the building was the Black Sector.

An underground laboratory, communications room, and even rec center. This was where Ikora was free to let herself stretch the edges of modern science a bit more to fit the Golden Age. It wasn't there, not yet, but it was the difference between being 700 or so years out of date, and merely 500.

To the basic untrained eye, it wouldn't look too special. Sure, the hard angular lines and diamond shaped doorways she had borrowed from the Golden Age Bunkers looked advanced, but not impossibly so. To most, it only looked like a short glimpse into the future.

That was because they didn't know that there was a several gigawatt Tokamak style plasma fusion reactor underneath that powered this section of the building. In emergencies it could power the whole building. It was completely safe, and technically outdated by her standards. She could make more energy in an afternoon if she really put her mind to it, but this was something that she was able to throw together with modern materials and limitations.

It powered many high end functions for labs in the Black Sector, things that would allow her to dabble in the more high end and exotic sciences, all without people getting suspicious about the unusual power drain of the facility.

The idea behind the Black Sector was that it would allow her to work on projects roughly 10 years before she officially started work on them upstairs. Most of the power was devoted to maintaining the rudimentary A.I. she had set up for cybersecurity and general operations, as well as the various other security systems and experiments.

The security in the Black Sector made the Pentagon look like the gate to a child's playpen. Not surprising considering it was several centuries ahead of it's time. Considering the technology she would be working with, and the secrets kept here, it was no surprise really. If anything, Ikora wasn't quite sure it was enough.

But this was all useless without something very very important.

People.

As good as she was, Ikora could admit that she actually couldn't do everything by herself. This is why she created the Hidden back in her own timeline.

And now…

Now she had the High Court.

A group of talented individuals she personally vetted and picked up from across the globe, all of which she saw that certain special spark in.

Before a Guardian was reborn in the Traveler's light, a ghost had to seek it out and revive it. A ghost was able to do this by looking at someone's soul and taking a measure of it. This was something that most people tended to gloss over, but it meant that a Ghost could measure the potential of someone by _directly looking into their soul_.

And it's what she was doing with these individuals.

Had she the ability, and they were dead, she knew that each one of the souls in her Court could have been revived as a Warlock, as a Guardian that delved deep into the very secrets of Light and the universe itself.

Alas, she would have to make due with creating her own secret cabal of young mad scientists for the purpose of uplifting humanity to prepare them for the coming Darkness.

"It's fine, but I gave you operational names for a reason," Ikora smirked, looking on at the 6 individuals in front of her. Each of them young and new to the world. Several older adults technically fit her criteria, but they had all made their mark on the world, they had made a name for themselves and had a loyalty to something else.

They weren't quite as malleable to her.

"Yes Empress" They nodded.

Each of the people in the High Court, including herself, were given a name of nobility in keeping with the region they came from.

Baron was a young 17 year old Caucasian boy from Nebraska she had found who had skipped 3 grades, had been about to graduate MIT, and had a very invested interest in mechanical and electrical engineering.

Duchess was a 20 year old blonde girl from Germany who was well on her way to being a rising star in particle physics.

Emira, Rani, Thilas, and Gaegukja were her other four.

In fact, this was one of the major aspects of the High Court. In spite of their wide cultural draws, they were able to work together. Mostly because of two things.

One, Ikora was a powerful and charismatic force that both encouraged and forced them to work together. Each of them, in some way, respected and admired her, for various reasons depending on the person.

For most of them, however, she was a savior who rescued them from a terrible place in their lives, or, someone who finally gave them a chance when the rest of the world saw only a child. She took a leading role in molding them, and maintained an edge of superiority over them. Despite how intelligent each of them may have been on their own, she was lightyears ahead of each of them, making it so they always saw her as challenge, as a goal, and as a superior.

Empress wasn't technically from her region, but it was a general rank that most regions understood, and it was the highest rank of nobility in the places it was known. It might be a sign of her ego, but considering that Cayde and once called her the Queen of the Crucible, she found it fitting to give herself a promotion.

The other reason was because she was able to give them interesting technology and challenges to keep them interested, opportunities they knew for a fact couldn't be found anywhere else in the world.

Not the least of which was the simple injection of nanomites derived from the Transmission Project, one that actually fixed almost all common issues. There were a large degree of benefits mostly just revolving around general health boosts to raise them toward the peak of human health. The full version was technically supposed to make them somewhat superhuman, but Ikora was far from stupid enough to just hand several young humans superhuman abilities without them having proven themselves.

But, it did have the nice benefit of downloading a complete collection of all recorded human language, effectively shattering the language barrier. It also included a rudimentary summary of culture, enough to vaguely understand cultural ques.

Didn't stop them from making social blunders with each other, however.

 _Ah, the folly of youth._

"So, you finally going to tell us the whole story?" Thilas, a 21 year old Western African man with an interest in biology, particularly the effects of evolution on biomechanics and how animals were designed to perform different tasks and overcome certain challenges.

She hummed in thought, mostly to entertain them, her mind already made up.

"Yeah, I think we've done a pretty good job down here," Rani confidently said, a 19 year old Indian girl with quite a fondness for genetics, and an almost disturbing predilection for viruses and bacteria.

She'd given them a few concepts, ideas, tools, and equipment to play with down here, just to come up with some prototype ideas and designs. They'd actually done good work. None of it wasn't anything she hadn't seen before, granted, _however_ , it was all various projects and idea she's seen from Golden Age documents and research, things that were way ahead of this timeline.

Again, outdated for her, advanced for them.

After all, Rani and Thilas had managed to come up with the groundwork for a retrovirus that could be used to genetically enhance mankind starting with the people alive now, and persisting into their children and the rest of humanity. In effect, it would be a method to forcefully evolve humanity to a higher level with a manufactured virus.

Now, the setup they had Ikora knew would actually end with a terrible strain of virus that would mutate humans into almost vampiric superhumans with such a high metabolism they required twice their bodyweight in food every day lest they starve, to the point that it would override their sanity before spiraling into rampant cannibalism of weaker non-infected humans.

But hey, you live and learn. This was a learning experience more than anything.

Besides, they were on the right track.

"Very well," Ikora began with a smirk, walking over to the table, "How about this,"

She pulled out a tablet, one of the many pieces of semi-advanced equipment she had in the Black Sector, and placed it on the table. The tablet interfaced with the table, and soon enough a hologram sprung forth to hover in front of her Court.

"What is that?" Gaegukja asked in awe, an 17 year old boy from Korea with an interest in Astrophysics.

"This is a project I have for you." She said, unable to keep the grin from her face, "I want you to research something very special."

Before them spun the image of a crystalline blue object with what appeared to be runes and character etched onto it. It glowed with a soft, unnerving, light, and around it hovered various pictures and windows containing certain reports.

Upon its appearance, Emira, a 15 year old girl from the UEA with what some might consider a terrifying interest and aptitude for a certain area of technology, suddenly became _very_ interested. A common rule in the Black Sector was that if there was a possible way it could be used for offensive or defensive actions in war, Emira could and would find it with all the exuberance of a child searching for Easter Eggs.

Ikora thought it was cute.

"I want you to figure out what this is," She smiled, bracing her hands on the table and leaning in.

"And how we can use it."

* * *

 _A/n:_

 _...Still really not sure about those names_

 _Anyways, that's the end of the long awaited chapter 7._

 _Although there are a couple things in here that bugged me and I'm endeavoring to work on._

 _First, Lara._

 _She's sort more of a problem than I thought, but probably not in the way you think. It started with a small itch in my mind about some things in the games and transferring them to here, and then got a bit crazy the more I researched it. Let me put it like this._

 _Lara should be dead._

 _Like, super dead._

 _She does stuff in the games that a normal human just wouldn't survive, things I referred to in this chapter. Like swimming through near-freezing water like it's nothing, and just cauterizing a wound like it's a simple quick fix._

 _Ha ha, no._

 _No, that'll kill you. The cauterizing thing more so in the long term because of infection, the ice water thing because frostbite's a bitch._

 _But, she does these things in the game with relative frequency and such. I could ignore those game, but I've already tied at least Rise of the Tomb Raider in here, at it wouldn't make much sense for Lara to suddenly be squishier than she was there._

 _But the good news is that I've dealt with it._

 _Just felt like pointing it out before someone in the reviews goes "Uh, but, a normal human girl would die if they tried to swim in ice water like that, or if they got stabbed, or etc etc". Don't worry random guy, already got that._

 _On to the other issue._

 _The High Court and Black Sector._

 _That...that's actually just their names. I'm really not sure how I feel about "Empress", but I also don't feel like dwelling too much on an Alias. Sides, I can have Cayde and Zavala(to a lesser extent) rib her about it later. Talk about her inflated ego or something._

 _But on the flipside, we finally got to see Ikora again and you guys finally got to take a look at the research division of all this._

 _Now, when she mentions "they had the potential to be warlocks", she didn't actually mean that they specifically had light or that she could turn them into warlocks. It had to do with mental potential, and have thing mindset to be one, and the right kind of soul, like..._

 _It'd be like going to ancient Athens and finding someone who had an incredible potential to be a fighter pilot. Except you're in ancient Athens, you don't have a fighter jet, you don't know how to make a fighter jet, and you don't even have what you need in order to make one, assuming you knew how._

 _That's the problem with the Ghost and making more Guardians._

 _This story also managed to somehow smash through 100 reviews, 200 follows, and 15,000 views in just 6 chapters. Damn._

 _Damn._

 _As a reward, of sorts, I'm going to try to have 8 out as soon as possible. Hopefully (crosses fingers) next week. It's already about...25-33% done._

 _Along with a...certain special thing_

 _But that's all for now_


	8. Chapter 8: Tear

**:**

 **\\_\\_/_/**

 **\\_\/_/**

 **\ _ /**

 **\/**

 **Vanguard**

 **Scene 8**

 **Tear**

 _A/n: A week I said._

 _Ha_

 _ha_

 _Fuck my life._

* * *

There was darkness

Everywhere Lara looked, there was darkness. Cold, empty, darkness.

She looked down, to determine if she could even see her own body.

 _Nope, still here_ She thought, flexing her fingers.

Then she noticed a sound.

 _Drip_

 _Drip_

 _Drip_

 _Water?_ She wondered, making her way towards the source. As she approached it, she began to feel an undeniable _heat_. It warmed her body in the otherwise crippling cold. It seemed to be coming from the walls of the cave itself.

A chilling wind blew in from behind her, sending her stumbling further down the tunnel. The draft began as a quiet whisper, barely louder than the sound of dripping.

As she descended down, she spotted a field of stalactites and stalagmites. Water dripping from the ceiling above onto the water below, and the source of the mineral deposits. In fact, a small pool had formed at the bottom, flowing into a small creek leading out of the larger cavernous room.

And yet still, the wind howled passed her, urging her on. So she descended down, the warmth of the caves rising, the chilling breath of wind soon becoming the only reprieve from the stifling heat.

But finally, she reached an end.

She turned a corner, and there it was. The mouth of the cave opened up to show Lara the wide open air. She could see snow capped peaks in the distance, the wind within the cave rushing out to meet the sky once more.

She stepped out of the cave, a shiver going down her back as the air brushed across her skin and the warmth of the cave left her. She looked down below her, eyes going wide at the breathtaking sight.

She had exited within a valley, a massive valley. A massive ring of snow-capped mountains surrounded it, no doubt cold and frigid. Lara herself was about halfway down one such mountain.

But the valley itself was full of life. A geothermal valley, no doubt like the one Jacob and his followers and inhabited. A green forest teeming with wildlife and plants, a secluded paradise in a frozen wilderness.

In front of her was the water, a massive river stretching at almost beyond sight to the other side. At the coast at the end of the valley was something truly incredible.

It was a walled city crafted from ancient stone. Massive in size and scope. The massive wall circling around the city easily held kilometers of territory within its gates.

Massive ramparts dotted the imposing walls, all of which towered over the tree line. Fashioned from black stone, it was a fortress built to dwarf the pyramids of Giza. The castle at the center rose above it all, it's massive halls and gates clear from even this distance.

And despite the age, despite the ruins dotting the countryside beyond the gates, she could tell by the burning blue lights flickering in the buildings, by the movement churning through the streets.

This place was ancient, but it was far from dead.

She could hear the drums of war pounding in the air, the rumble of great horns calling for action. Deep, thrumming, music that stirred something deep within her echoed through the valley. It sent a disquiet tremble through her arms as she heard the beat calling her.

 _ **Buu~um**_

 _ **Thrum**_

 _ **Buu~um**_

 _ **Thrum**_

She closed her eyes and just listened. Listened to it all pass through her, to feel it shake her bones awake, sense the beat of her heart rise to its call.

She was pulled from her reverie by the sound of snow crunching underfoot. Her eyes snapped open and darted to the source.

Even still she was unprepared.

Her breath hitched in her throat as her neck craned back to drink in every inch of the sight, her hungering mind unsatisfied with anything less. She could feel her blood run cold at the sight, the strange, almost impossible, sight.

A giant stood before her. A woman, towering head and shoulders above her like she was but a small child before their mother. The giant woman had pale blue skin and bright, shining, blue eyes filled with an intelligent and ethereal light.

Her face seemed to be carved flawlessly from hard and pure ice, both stern and beautiful. Two obsidian horns curved out from the fore of her head, arcing through her long locks of snow white hair tied up in a neat bun behind her.

She wore thick plates of armor black as night, with swirling, looping, runes, and markings engraved all through it. Between the plates, thick tufts of furs and cloth could be seen. A lose armored skirt of fur and steel hung from a thick belt down to her knees over her greaves, thick plated boots covering the rest. In her gauntlet covered hands, she held a spear crafted from the same black metal of her armor, familiar sigils engraved all down its length.

The giant looked down at Lara, staring directly into her brown eyes. Lara stared back, matching the giant's gaze, unable to look away.

The giantess rose a single solitary armored finger towards Lara, her gaze carved from a glacier. Pale lips parted to say one word.

And her voice shook the heavens.

" _Seeker"_

Lara jerked up, clutching her chest. Her heart pounded in her chest and she was drenched in a cold sweat.

She was in a room bathed in darkness, sitting on some kind of soft platform, probably a bed, but it could have been a couch or something else. Most of her clothes were gone, just leaving her in her undershirt and boxers.

She panted fiercely for a moment, before using breathing exercises to try to calm herself down.

"Lara!"

She startled, immediately reaching for a gun that wasn't there.

"Glad to see you're finally up!" it cheerfully continued.

Then she recognized who it was.

"Dammit, Cayde." She breathed out, relaxing back onto the cushioning surface.

A bright light clicked on, causing her to wince at the blinding sensation. When she opened them again she could see that she was on a cot in one of the crew's rooms. Cayde was seated in a chair facing her about a meter from the bed.

"So, how ya feeling?" He asked.

"Like I need to make better life choices," She muttered, rubbing her head.

Cayde chuckled slightly at that, but then gave her a serious look for once, "No, Lara, I mean _really_."

She let out a breath, "I feel terrible, probably dehydrated," She commented as she licked her dry mouth.

"I have a headache, I'm really quite hungry, and most of my body feels too sore to move."

"Got it," he nodded. He opened his mouth to speak again, but she beat him to it.

"H-how are the others?" She blurted out abruptly.

"Well," Cayde began, tapping the hard wood of the nightstand, "We won, if that's what you're asking."

"The captain died, unfortunately." He added, "But Charles made it back in one piece."

"Charles?" Lara asked, the name vaguely ringing a bell.

"Yeah, the guy with the family." Cayde answered, "Turns out he was former GSG 9, managed to use the bombs I gave them to blow up their crystal."

"Oh," she said, letting out a breath of relief, "I'm glad he made it back to his family."

"It's nice to have a happy ending once in awhile," He agreed, "We managed to get the ship up and running again, the weird fog lifted as soon as all the ships sank."

"So we're getting out of here?"

"Looks like."

"That's good." She said, letting out a breath of relief as she finally let herself relax.

Cayde, on the other hand, pursed his lips furtively.

"Laura..." He began hesitantly. "How are you feeling?"

"Mentally, I mean."

She blinked, "Why do you mention it?" She asked suspiciously.

"Well," he paused in mock consideration, tilting his head to the side as he got up, "It _could_ be the how I found you collapsed on the deck of the ship."

"Or," He continued, stepping right up to the bed, "It could be this."

And with those words, he pulled the hem of her shirt up to her chest.

"Hey! What the Bloody hell do you thi-…"

The words died in her throat as her blood ran cold at the sight he revealed.

The large wound in her stomach, the one where she'd been impaled by the Draugr, was completely healed. But that wasn't the worry.

It was the rune burned into her skin in an all too familiar pattern right over the sealed hole.

"Lara," He said, his voice devoid of all mirth and humor, concern shining brightly in his eyes,

"What happened down there?"

"I-" She gulped, ice in her veins and dread in her soul.

 _What happened to me?_

"I-I fought and I," She began, absently touching the band as her mind raced. "I got hurt, really hurt and I..."

"I blacked out."

Cayde gave her a long and careful look with focused eyes. "Laura..."

"I think you died."

* * *

"So what did you think?"

"I thought it was extremely unrealistic and scientifically unfounded."

Athena, once again wearing the guise of Carole Agathe, resisted the urge to pout.

Mostly.

"Really, Philip?" She questioned, giving him a disbelieving look.

The two of them made their way out of the theater, walking across the parking lot as they made their way to Philip's car.

"I mean, I get it, the idea that aliens are all bad and they'd just come in to wipe us all out like checking off another box on a checklist is unrealistic," She admitted, gesturing with her soda.

"That's not my problem at all," Philip stopped her.

"Oh?" She challenged.

"No," He nodded with certainty, "I'm completely fine with that part, it's not that unrealistic."

"But the idea that said race of advanced alien warriors with a war machine that has burned through dozens, if not hundreds, of worlds before it would have the cybersecurity of a run down Waffle House, is absurd."

She blinked.

"Now that you mention it, that is a bit odd."

"Not to mention the fact that the aliens only seemed to have a basic grasp of Shock and Awe tactics, with little in the way of actual strategical thought or execution." He grumbled, "They just went after whatever they could see, like a simple animal."

Then he directed his narrowed gaze towards the woman who dragged him here, "In fact, I'm surprised you liked the movie yourself."

She smirked, "Well, what can I say? I've always been a fan of a good Trojan Horse."

He gave her a flat look for all of a second before he turned away with a shake of his head. Athena could only chuckle lightly.

"You're incorrigible." He commented.

"I know how to have fun." She smirked, "Unlike a certain uptight _someone_ I know."

His frown seemed to deepen, and his silence almost made Athena worry she'd gone too far.

"…I'm willing to admit" He began, pulling her from her thoughts, "That I did enjoy the concept."

"I found that what it lacked in intelligence, it made up for in its own kind of charisma. It was an inspiring story of humanity overcoming the odds, of fighting back when the rest of the universe sought to snuff them out. They didn't let it crush their spirit, and even in the darkest days they still held onto the light."

"So…?" She said with a hopeful tone.

"…It wasn't terrible," Philip conceded with a shrug,

Athena snorted, "Wow, what a glowing review."

"Unlike some people, it takes more to amuse me than a few cheap fireworks." He scoffed.

"Cheap fireworks?" She questioned, "That stuff was amazing! You can't seriously tell me that watching the aliens blow up DC and the other cities wasn't one of the most gloriously destructive things you've ever seen."

He snorted, "Obviously you haven't seen Ikora and Shaxx work together." Under his breath adding, "Crazy bastards."

She chuckled, finding amusement in his pain.

Suddenly Philip stopped.

Athena blinked, "Philip?" She asked, concerned and somewhat wary.

His whole stance became rigid. The crowd around them passed him by like a river around a stone. He was focused, tuning out the world around him as he zeroed in on some unseen speck of information.

"Philip?" She repeated, getting somewhat worried.

"…Do you hear that?" he finally said.

She frowned, "Hear what?"

One could barely hear anything under the dull droning roar of the crowd, the rumble of cars along the street, and the sounds of the very city around them. A cacophony of noise surrounded them, making it all but impossible for a normal person to pick up any one specific sound.

He grumbled something in his unintelligible tongue and marched through the crowd, heading towards some hidden destination.

"This way," He muttered, a scowl in his voice.

Athena huffed, but followed him.

They walked down the sidewalk, moving down the peaceful and unsuspecting downtown streets filled with bustling and ignorant citizens. All the while suspicion wormed it's way into Athena's heart.

Finally, they arrived.

Philip stopped in the entrance of an alley. On either side of him stood large walls of brick and mortar, hiding the bright gaze of the sun and bathing the corridor in shade. The closer one got to the back, the more it became totally engulfed in shadow, the corridor arcing behind a building and into the dark depths of the city. A fog seemed to crawl out of the darkness, hugging close to the walls and floor of the alley.

And at the end of it, was the sound he sought.

Crying.

It was more than just the sound of it, more than simply the detection of sound waves oscillating ones inner ear. It was the expression of pain, of fear, of _despair_.

Athena could hear it. She'd heard it the moment she left the theater. Even bathed in sound as she was, the goddess was more than capable of picking up even the quietest of whispers from blocks away.

She just didn't think a mere mortal like Philip could.

 _Most curious_ she said, giving him a cautious look.

Philip gazed down the darkened alley with an intensity strong enough to make a lesser being wither and die. His eyes unwavering and unyielding, picking out every minute detail. His hands and jaw clenched tightly, straining against the mortal bindings that kept them in place.

"Philip, is this…?" Her asking was merely a formality, they both knew.

"Carole" He rumbled, his tone dark and heavy, before a subtle movement of his arm stole her attention.

Athena looked down to see, much to her surprise, Philip handing her a sheathed knife nearly as long as her forearm.

"Just in case."

His words were punctuated by another cry of pain echoing out of the alleyway.

Slowly, Athena nodded and took the knife from his hands. Far from concerned about her own life, Athena was both anxious and excited to see where this would lead.

 _Lets see the kind of man you really are, Philip_. She thought with narrowed eyes, scrutinizing every inch of his person as he stepped forward. Every move he made was like a coiled viper, cords of muscle tensing just under his skin.

A burst of sound, metal clattering loudly upon asphalt, stole her attention. When Athena glanced back toward Philip, he held a firearm in his hands. An M1911 with a matte black finish held in a relaxed, but trained grip.

… _And where did you get that?_ Athena wondered, taking another glance at the knife in her hands, _Or this, for that matter_?

When they stepped around the corner and into the scene, she stayed silent, her questions held at bay because, for all she was eager to learn, Athena knew she would become witness to an enlightening display. The stage was set, the players in their positions and the curtain raised to begin the play.

Now she just had to enjoy the show.

"Oh, my god, are you alright?"

A woman in a long green sundress with a straw hat, long black hair, and large glasses kneeled down before a girl laying on the ground. Standing over the two of them was a woman in a long white dress with a light denim vest overtop and a pair of sunglasses that sank into her flowing brown hair.

The girl was young, _very_ young, not a day over 8 by Athena's guess. She wore torn jeans, scuffed and dirty sneakers, and ripped black shirt. Her hair black and her eyes blue as the sky.

The young girl looked like she'd just gotten beaten and mugged. Her backpack was thrown against the ground, the contents strewn about the asphalt. She was coughing fiercely, wheezing for breath, several scratches along her body, and one large gash across her arm where she'd been slashed. She seemed to be barely conscious.

Philip gave the whole seen a careful look.

"…Ma'am?" He finally said, getting her attention.

"Oh my!" The one in green exclaimed, startling at his announcement of his presence, "T-there was a man, he just about snatched her up. The precious thing has some fight in her, though."

Her tone was thick with a southern accent as she fret frantically over the child's body.

"A man?"

"Yes," She nodded emphatically, "The man ran off my dear niece, My dear sister managed to chase him down, but…"

"I see…" Philip said slowly, lowering his gun.

The other one in the white dress huffed angrily, pointing down the corridor, "There goes that scoundrel!"

Through the thick fog permeating the alley they could make out a man running down the alley, hefty purse in hand.

"Get after him!" She cried, "He's got my purse!"

"I'll call an ambulance, but the poor thing might not make it without her inhaler." The one in the green dress said morosely.

The girl seemed to tremble in the woman's hands, tears silently running down her face.

"Hush, dear," The one in green comforted her, "Don't hurt yourself."

"Very well," Philip nodded, "I assure that all be well in a minute, ma'am"

The woman in white beamed at him, and the girl sucked in another pained breath filled with agony. To careful eyes, she almost seemed to deflate, the hope leaving her eyes. The one in green just smiled and hugged the girl closer.

"But first," Interrupting their reverie "I have a question," he said as he brought both his eyes to bear, smoldering in the intensity of their gaze.

"What are you?"

The women both stiffened for a moment, before relaxing into easy and inviting smiles.

"Why, whatever do you mean?" The one in green asked.

"We're just visitors from Charleston, here to see our dear little niece."

As they spoke, the fog of the alley rose, growing higher and thicker. She could feel the Mist of the area become stronger, a heavy haze that would dull the mind of all mortals trying to see through it.

But his eyes cut through it all like a lighthouse in the morning fog.

"I'm sure you are." He said carefully. "But you're also not human."

They froze, their posture once relaxed now tense.

"I don't know what you are," He continued slowly, drawing his gun once more, "But I'm not here to entertain your games."

Slowly they shifted from smiles to scowls.

"Two non-human entities such as yourself hovering over a young and battered little girl?" He began, his tone filled with a venomous bile and contempt, "I can't help but find it very suspicious."

Their lips pulled back to bare teeth.

"But I suppose it makes sense."

"Coming from a snake."

Suddenly the woman in green lunged forward, the skin on her hands peeling back to reveal scaled arms and claws. The attack came in the blink of the eye, faster than the average human could even process.

It earned her he a lightning quick jab to the face. The force of the punch snapped her head back, sending her reeling in pain as she cupped her bleeding face.

When she pulled it away the skin fell to more scales. Under the skirt could be seen a long coiling tail of a snake. More and more skin was shed from both their forms, pale flesh giving way to sleek scales. One with Green scales, the other White.

Athena knew what they were. She'd known since the very moment they entered her range so carelessly.

Lamia, the snake women of Greece. They couldn't sense her godly presence, not when she was like that, and she would keep it that way. She wanted to see what Philip, a mere mortal, could do against two monsters of the immortal world. If he couldn't handle it, well…she'd step in when it got too hot.

After all, what could a mortal do against the immortal forces of this world?

It was the same question on the minds of the Lamia before them.

One quickly dismissed by long held assurances.

And one they would come to regret.

White attempted to lash out with her tail, but Philip dashed back out of range. Green slithered forward, chasing him down. She lunged at him with an open claw.

He retaliated by slamming the but of his pistol on her hand with such force that Athena could practically hear the crack of monstrous bone from even that distance. Philip followed with a strong backhand connecting with the creature's jaw, forcing her head snap to the side and sending her reeling as her brain rocked in her skull.

Seizing the moment of breath, Philip took aim at White and fired. Round after round of deafening lead went slamming into the lamia's form. For all their lethality, it had all the effect of hail upon her hardened scales. For a moment, the Lamia smirked.

And then the 5th round punctured the jelly of her eye. As her orbit burst in blood and nerves, White recoiled in stunned agony, the shock overwhelming any and all pain. In a matter of moments, the remaining rounds found their marks, raining blows across her face. Another punctured the soft pallet of her throat as she screamed in pain. The third gouging out her other eye.

With the final round in the magazine, Philip sent another chunk of lead screaming down her throat, boring a hole in the soft back of her neck.

The Lamia reeled in agony, coughing up puddles of blood as she tried not to drown on her own fluids. Blinded and bleeding, she was out of the way.

Leaving the way open for him turn his attention to a furious Green Lamia.

Her burning cry of vengeance fell on deaf ears as she pounced on Philip. Athena watched with renewed interest as the mortal proved himself beyond what she expected. He deftly weaved through the first two of her strikes, batting aside the third and fourth with his left hand. Still, Green pushed forward, attacking him with savage abandon, all thought swept in the all-consuming rage that filled her.

She gave him no quarter as she swiped and slashed, hurling insult and venom at him with blazing hatred. All thought was gone from her assault, all that was left was instinct and fury.

Which left her blindsided by his counterattack.

All it took was a simple overreach with her claw, and Philip's right hand blurred into motion.

With a crunch, he pistol-whipped the Lamia in the jaw so hard that the frame of the gun cracked, the metal bending and twisting under the crushing force. Athena could see the shockwave traveling through the beast's head. Her skull fracturing under the force, her jaw shattering from the blow. Her head twisted to the side almost fast enough to snap her neck, her brain violently shaking in her skull.

Then, a glint of polished steel flickered through the air.

In the next instant, a knife plunged it's way into the Lamia's throat, before Philip tore it out of the side of her neck, spraying the walls with her bright red blood. As the beast collapsed to the ground, groping the gaping wound in her neck hopelessly as the light left her eyes and the blood left her body, Philip only looked down at her with a cold expression

In the relative peace of the fight, Athena saw Philip look over his opponents, each bloody, beaten, and dazed, and ever so slightly relax.

Thud

Philip just barely managed to get his arm up in time to block the blow. A hairy fist crashed into his forearm with enough force to snap a lesser man in half.

Philip just grit his teeth.

Another massive fist went sailing towards his gut at near blinding speeds. Unable to reposition himself, the fist slamming into chest. But like a wall of iron against the storm, he didn't so much as tremble from the blow.

Before him stood the imposing form of a man in loose jeans and a white tank top. A scruffy beard and long wild black hair brushed his shoulders. Hopping back, the man looked Philip over, as well as the two Lamia on the ground writhing in pain.

"Heh, it's so hard to find good help these days." He chuckled.

Philip offered him only a scowl in return.

The large man, easily 7ft tall, simply shrugged, "I guess you're the silent type."

"That's fine," he cracked his knuckles, "Because you'll be squealing all the same when I'm done with you."

"That's what you get for getting in between me and my prey." He said with a toothy grin.

The man at the end of the alley chuckled for but a moment, when a change overtook him. The crack of bone and the stretch of muscle could be heard as his own body churned under his skin. He grew almost another half-foot as his joints popped and cracked. His hair grew wildly across his body, his fingers curling into claws. His ears grew long and pointed, becoming covered in fur.

Athena's eyes widened ever so slightly, mildly surprised that such a rare and dangerous would be present for such a thing.

For the man was a Werewolf.

One of the most dangerous monsters of the immortal world. Strong, cunning, fast, and ruthless, the combined the best and worst traits of all that made them. And they were notoriously difficult to kill.

The beast chuckled, a deep rumble in his throat, "Too bad you won't get to enjoy your little 'victory', but I have to make this fast."

And yet, despite it all, Philip just looked at the beast with hard eyes. A face chiseled from stone stared back at the monster, not a fraction of fear of panic on him.

Instead, he calmly drew yet another gun from his side.

"Ha!" The beast barked, "What's this? A cute little toy?"

She couldn't see where he had gotten it, the firearm suddenly appearing in his hand when she glanced away for a moment. It was an odd little thing. Resembling an antique. A Mauser C96 if memory served correctly.

Oh _Philip_ Athena snorted as Philip calmly leveled the barrel at the wolf's head, _You might have gotten lucky with the foolish and weak Lamia, but this is a Werewolf. Bringing a mortal weapon to a fight of legends is a foolish mistake you might not live to regret. You certainly won't be vanquishing any monster with a simple gun._

 _And certainly not with such an_ antiq _-_

 **BANG**

Athena was startled out of her thoughts by the loud and thunderous retort of his gun. She saw the bullet pass right through the beast's face…

And explode out the back of his skull.

Stunned silent, Athena can only watch as Philip turns back towards the Lamia lying in their own blood.

 **BANG**

Another bullet splatters the inside of the Green Lamia across the ground.

The White one, hearing the gunshots but still blind to the world, lurches up, beginning to panic.

"Sister?" She whimpers, whipping her head back and forth in desperation, "Sister, what's-"

 **BANG**

White's head all but implodes, her skull decorating the walls of the alley. An errant burst of blood splashes against Philip's cheek.

Philip lowers the gun, letting out a low breath as he surveyed the area around him. Scowling, he holstered his gun behind him in some unseen pocket and walked up to the girl who had sparked all this.

When he kneeled down to her level, she flinched away from him in fear. She'd finally regained her breath, but words escaped her in favor of raw terror.

Instantly Philip's face seemed to melt from the stony scowl, into a much more inviting, patient, and warm look. "Hey there," He reached out to her.

She flinched away, batting his hand to the side in panic. As he got closer she flailed her arms against him, spouting incoherent ramblings of fear.

"Hey, hey, they're all gone now, you're safe." He whispered to her, weathering the storm as he laid a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not going to hurt you."

She kicked and wailed against him, his body simply shrugging it off and his patience pushing him through. Soon she tired herself out, exhausting what little energy she had. She sagged into his arms, her wails giving in to outright tears.

Philip twisted around, sitting right next to her against the wall and letting her lean against for support.

"It's alright," he said, a comforting hand on her shoulder as he let her sob all over him. "just let it all out."

After a few moments, the girl managed to compose herself enough to speak up. "T-thank y-you f-for saving me from the m-monsters." She sniffled.

"Well that's just what people like me do, we protect all the little boys and girls from the monsters out to get them." He smiled, "There are things that go bump in the night."

"My job is to bump back."

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked, concern filling his voice.

She nodded, her black locks swaying with the movement.

"Can you tell me your name?" Philip asked.

She bit her lip, as if considering it for a moment, but finally nodded.

"I-it's." She swallowed, "It's Thalia."

"Thalia Grace."

And as Athena watched the once secret daughter of Zeus be comforted by the man she'd just realized held a mystery far deeper than she'd ever imagined, she could only think one thing.

 _Well,_ She drummed her fingers against her leg. _This changes the game._

 _This changes everything_

* * *

"Luke?"

In a quaint house in Connecticut, a young boy of 5 years played in the living room.

Heedless of his mother's call, his attention was focused on the screen in front of him, his fingers dancing across the hard plastic remote in his hands.

"Luke?" She repeated, finally stepping into the living room. "There you are, sweetie."

"What do you want for dinner?"

The boy only gave a noncommittal grunt.

"Luke." She raised her voice to get his attention, somewhat exasperated.

"Hmm?" He perked up, finally recognizing his mother's presence, "What's up, mom?"

"Dinner?" She smiled wryly.

The boy blushed, scratching his cheek as he realized what'd happened. "Er, uh, sorry?"

"It's fine," She brushed it off with an easy grin, "But I'm starting to think maybe this thing's bad for you." She teased, gesturing to the tv.

"What? No!" He exclaimed, protectively covering his precious playstation.

"I don't know, ever since I got it for you, all it seems to do is rot your brain." She smirked.

"Don't you dare." The 5-year-old attempted to scowl.

The woman couldn't help but smirk at his pout, "I guess I can let you play a bit more."

"I'd still like to know what you want for dinner."

"Um…" the boy bit his lip, thinking about it, "Lasagna?"

She chuckled, "Of course, Luke."

She ruffled the boy's brown hair, much to his displeasure. "I'll get it all ready for us and then we can watch some X-files."

"Thanks mom." He smiled.

"Anything for my little warrior," She grinned, getting up and moving towards the kitchen, "You have fun with your little Air Battles"

"It's Air Combat!" he whined.

She only gave him a departing chuckle as she left his sight.

Pouting, the boy returned to his games to distract his mind and expand his horizons.

Soon, time passed him by as he became engrossed once more into the digital landscape laid out for him. Immersed in the graphical art he bathed himself in archaic aerial battles.

But while he was caught up in the powerful stream of game's time, he was drawn by a strange scent passing across his mind. His attention pulled, he focused on it, inhaling another fresh breath of it.

His nose crinkled as the acrid passed through, his face curling in disgust.

"Ugh," He cringed, "Mom, are you burning something?"

Finally pulled from the world of his games, he was slowly able to perceive his surroundings. He noticed how the day had already passed to night. He noticed how his stomach gnawed and grumbled from hunger.

"...mom?" he repeated, concerned.

But only silence greeted.

Frowning, he paused the game and got up from his place on the floor. He walked his way to the kitchen, passing by the dark and empty dining room. A light crept out from the entryway to the kitchen, casting everything in dull shadows. Smoke seemed to fill the room, and yet the alarm remained undisturbed.

Finally, passing through the room of dark and empty shadows, his heart filling with dread and his stomach fluttering in his chest, he entered the kitchen.

"Mom?" He repeated, fear clawing at the back of his mind as his imagination soared into overdrive, pulling nightmare after nightmare into his mind.

He gulped as he stepped through the dense cloud of smoke that enveloped the room. Dread fills him as he sees a flickering flame in the window of the oven.

Then he sees her. Bent over the sink, her head bowed low and cradled in her hands.

He inches forward, reaching out to shake her shoulder. "...A-are you okay?"

Just before his fingers brush up against her shirt, she vanishes. The boy recoils in fear, stumbling on his back foot. He trips to the ground, a dull pang of pain flaring up in him as he falls to the ground. Hyperventilating, his wide eyes take note of a large shape on the ground.

He swallows his fear, trying to push past it as he rises to his feet. "Mom?" He repeats, hoping against hope that she'll finally respond.

He sees her there, curled up on the floor in front of the oven, bathed in the flickering light of the fire. Hunched in the fetal position, her body frozen in an unseen pain as her hands grip tightly at her hair. As he gets closer he thinks he can hear her whispering something, murmuring words just under breath.

"M-mom?" He asks, trying to close the distance.

She doesn't so much as twitch in response. Her face is covered with her long locks of hair, only her lips peeking out from the messy mane. And they move with frightening speed, her lips twitching and forming words faster than his eyes can track. Faster than should be possible.

"-thelightburnsallshadowwithoutmercyunyeildingandabsoluteitprotectstheweakandburnstheheretics-"

"Mom?" He sniffled, hands reaching out to touch her, to be there for her. It seemed like it was like those other times. When she'd have one of her...episodes. It scared him, it always scared him, and he still didn't know what was happening.

But he knew that she loved him, that she tried to be there for him whenever she could. She did everything she could to support him.

And in return, he would be there for her.

His hand snaked out, wrapping around her own and pulling it from her head. He crouched down next to her, holding her shivering hand in his own, forcing down that fear as he sought to do his duty.

Then she vanished again.

Suddenly, her arms wrapped around him from behind. Her body was hot, radiating an unnatural heat that felt wrong on an instinctual level he could scarcely understand. Her head resting on his shoulder, her lips all but kissing his ear.

His body went rigid with terror, unable to truly understand what was happening or why.

But all the same, he heard the words his mother whispered into his ear.

"-andthestormwillrageunchallengedconsumingallwhohopeinitsswirlingfuryfireswillrisewindswillfallandeverythingwillgetcaughtupinthechaosthegodswillrememberthattheseviolentdelightshaveviolentendsashighastheyroseonthebacksoftruimphanddesperationsotoowilltheyfallontheswordsofinnovationandprogessingorancewillbeburnedawaybythefirestormoftruthandthedarkshadowsofthe-"

Her words were not her own. It was like an ocean of voices, a sick cacophony of a thousand people all screaming and whispering at once. It was a roar in his ears that, despite the breadth of voices, lost none of the potent sting of each sound lancing into his ears, **demanding** he listen.

His eyes slid to the side, risking a glimpse at her face against his better instincts.

Her face was scrunched up into a rictus of undisguised agony, emotional and physical pain written across her face. Despair and sorrow filling her eyes. She shed tears of blood freely as the trailed down her face. A stream of blood escaping her nose with more leaking from her ears. Her eyes twitched wildly, flitting about the room with an unnatural speed, focusing on unseen sights.

"M-m-mom?" the boy stuttered, terrified beyond belief.

She stopped her rant for a moment, paused as if shaken from her reverie and pulling herself back together. Her eyes unfocused momentarily, drifting about. Then they twitched back into position, both her chocolate orbs locking onto the boy's own green pair.

"Luke" She whispered in a soft voice like a nice mug of hot chocolate on a cold day, warm, rich, and was a bare moment of pure clarity. Filled with such love, such sorrow, such longing. He could feel the pain in her gaze, how much she felt violated, possessed like a puppet on strings.

Then her eyes widened, focused on something seemingly behind him, some unseen terror.

" _ **Run**_." The voices all spoke as one.

A light began to fill her eyes. A bright and terrible light.

"Run **Run** **Run** _ **Run**_." She repeated, the light burrowing under her eyes, sinking deep into her skin, her hands releasing him to crawl back up to her face.

"Mom?" The boy responded, scared beyond all reason, and yet he still felt immeasurable concern for his mother, the only person that mattered in his life. He twisted in her grip, grabbing onto her shoulders to hold her steady.

Bright cracks formed in the skin around her eyes, radiating out to the rest of her head.

"I looked for my lord, unbidden and unwilling, but unable to resist." She spoke once more, undisguised fear filling her voice, "The young god touches time, but does not, _cannot_ understand what he seeks. They are but children watching a play, thinking they see the story. They do not see the tapestry behind the curtains, the dense weave of foundation, culmination, evaluation, and execution."

"Mom, calm down, I'm right here." He tried to tell her.

"But they want to gaze into it all the same and I am their instrument." She continued, heedless of his words. "Theythinktheyarethesoledivinersofthelandthesoleownersofexistencetheythinkthemselvesspecialbeingexceptionstotheruletheythinkthemselvesmastersandgodsoftheworldaroundthemtheydonotunderstandthattheyareyetmereproductsoftheworld."

She spoke faster and faster, all but indecipherable now. The cacophony crawled back into her voice as she once more became part of the symphony.

"Buttheydontunderstandthatthingshavechangednowwhentheylookintotimewhentheyseektogazeintothefabricofexistancewhentheyseektodivinewhatthethreadsoftheuniversecantellthemtheyfailtounderstandthatsomethinglooksbacktheyarenttheonlyonesgazingintothestreamtheyarebutchildrenplayingwithatoytheythinktheyvemasteredwhilstthetruesavantsoftheartweredistractedbutnowtheyreburninggazeturnsback."

The cracks spread, her skin peeling and burning the intense energies being sent through her.

"Mom, stop it!" The boy cried.

"Andnowitsgazeturnstomeicanfeeltheyregazeturningtometheeyelooksatmeicanfeelitburnignthroughmeitburnsitburnsitburnsitburnsitburnsitburnsitburnsitburnsitburns."

"Please!"

"Havetogetawayhavetoturnawaycanneverlookawaycanneverhidethereisnowheretorunnowheretohidetheirburninggazeisabsoluteandeverywheretherewasneveranyescapetherewasneveranyhopethiswastheonlypossibilityformedtheinstantthestonehitthepondtheinstanttheripplesbeganeverythingwaschangedeverythingwasdoomedtothatinevitablechaosandchange" She mutters, "Becausethereisnoescapetherewasneveranyescapeitwasalljustanillusionicannevergetawayicanneverbefree."

"Mom! Don't leave me!" He sobbed, his voice hoarse as tears streamed down his face.

And at his words, his mother's gaze turned back towards him. Lines began to form in the air around her. Impossible lines that didn't exist, that never existed, that _couldn't_ exist, but somehow had always existed.

"Wecanneverbefreelukewerealldoomedtobetoolsforthosemorepowerfulthanus" She told him, hoping beyond hope that her words would reach through the tangled mess of her mind, through the tangled streams of time she was forced to work through. "Rememberlukerememberiwillalwaysloveyoupleaseremeberpleasebesafeyouhavetorunyouhavetobesafeyouhavetofindyourfatherhecanhelpprotectyouhesyouronlyhopepleasedothisformebabylukehoneysweetieluke-"

And then the lines burst through her skin. Piercing through her flesh, cutting into every inch of her and trapping her into a box of lines that never existed but always were. She was trapped and bound in a box of impossibility, of chronal contradiction. Every inch of her impaled but unmarked. It was there, and yet not.

Time all around them seemed to bend. Certain corners of the kitchen had the smoke flowing away from them, others had the smoke standing still. Behind her, the boy could see the flames flicking backward. He was trapped, all around him the world seemed to fragment and bend, to fracture and break.

And then he heard the noise.

The noise that could not be heard. The noise that did not exist. The noise that burned itself into every inch of every memory he has, even the ones he doesn't remember yet. That sound burns itself into very wrinkles of time in his mind.

Then it is gone.

It all shatters.

Her body falls to the ground, broken and still.

And it's never/always/currently over.

* * *

 _A/n:_

 _I wanted this to be out a while ago._

 _I was even a third of the way done with it._

 _I was like, "Yeah, I can do this."_

 _Then my muse came over and was like, "Ha, naw, you ain't get'n **shit** done."_

 _I basically had to rewrite half the chapter from there. Part of it is that I wasn't planning on doing the fight scene. It's just I needed something to bring my muse back to the whole thing._

 _And, well, writing fight scenes is always fun._

 _So I'm going to be honest, when writing the bit with Zavala and Athena, I'm not sure how good it is narratively or how much sense it makes, and I don't honestly care. This whole fic is a fun little experiment for me for the sole purpose of dicking around with what would happen if I combined the two in such a way, and how much fun I can have._

 _So for this story, how much fun something is to read and write will **always** take precedent over how much sense it makes or the problems it could cause. _

_And hot damn, was that a fun scene to write._

 _Zavala punching out some monsters and blasting their brains out._

 _So there are some things I'm going to brush past that I originally wanted to focus on, something things I'm going to have to rework, and some things I am going to ignore all the actual consequences I can think of that would result from it. If I didn't, I'd be spending, like, another 2 chapters focusing on the fallout of the boat incident as it relates to the crew and the authorities._

 _I don't think anyone wants that._

 _So we're moving on._

 _And on another note, Thalia and Luke. That did not happen like I thought it would. Well, Luke's mother I'd already planned, but Thalia! Oh, that was not expected. Thalia wasn't supposed to be relevant for a while. And even if she was, it would be by dear old dad taking a look._

 _Thalia appeared because I needed a young unaccounted demigod that had already been born and had some sort of agency. Percy (male of fem, still not exactly decided, but probably male) hasn't been born yet. Sally's knocked up alright, so whatever gender he ends up being, the little shit is coming out. Same for Annabeth(though she has her own problems) and basically anyone who might be born would be, like, 2. 'cept Luke, who's five. Which left me with Thalia._

 _Or the Romans, but the only things I know about what Rick did with them make me want to punt puppies into burning dumpsters. So, yeah, I'll probably have to either rewrite the Romans, mock the whole Roman situation, or ignore them if I want to not kill myself. Either way, for now, I'm just going to try not to think about them too much._

 _So, I could have made an OC Demigod to take the place of Bait. In fact, Trav said I should probably do that. Unfortunately I was feeling too lazy to bullshit another tragic kid's backstory, and Thalia was just oh so convenient. I try to only make OC's to fit roles I need to fill. If I can fill said role with a canonical character or an import (within certain strict limits) I'll do it._

 _So...I'm going to have to deal with that._

 _But I'm going to turn back to the issue of canon._

 _The more I find out about PJO, the more it annoys me, confuses me, and just makes me feel like curb stomping bunnies._

 _So, to that end, I'm going to give you guys a baseline for how I shal interpret each canon, especially PJO's._

 _PJO's side of the story shall all be built on the fundamental idea that ancient myths and legends were not only real, but exist today woven into the world and hidden behind a Veil. I'll be twisting and abusing that to my own will and using Canon as **Inspiration** but I'm not going to let myself become bound to something I think is dumb. I'll try to keep myself to the spirit of it all, rather than the letter. _

_Which means this. I don't care what "canon" says. If it's interesting and I can use it, I will. If I think it's dumb and painful, I'm dismissing it or making fun of it. I'm going to be putting fun and narrative **faaaaar** before canon compliance to either subject. I'll especially be looking more at ancient myths of actual legend rather than Rick's interpretation, and I'll keep an especially close eye on gameplay of the story._

 _So, yeah, that's all I have to say on that._

 _Next update...this year?_

 _Shit_

 _I jinxed myself, didn't I?_


	9. Chapter 9: Kickoff

**efo:**

 **\\_\\_/_/**

 **\\_\/_/**

 **\ _ /**

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 **Vanguard**

 **Scene 9**

 **Kickoff**

"So this is your place?"

" _Our_ place."

"Either way, kind of unimpressed."

"How?"

The building in question was a tower of glass rising up into the Los Angeles skyline. A gleaming obelisk of the metropolis. A monument to modern architecture. To the girl, it was familiar shape in a new form. To the man, it was a comforting landmark.

"I was expecting more fire and the screams of the damned."

The black-haired man frowned, "Language."

The girl by his side rolled her eyes, "For the king of hell, you're surprisingly soft."

"Well now I know you're just being mean."

"Baby"

He snorted, before reaching out with a hand and ruffling his daughter's hair.

"Hey!" she cried indignantly.

"You're so much like your mother it's scary," He chuckles.

She pauses. "...really?"

"Yep," He smiles sadly, "She always had that same kind of fire. Probably what drew me to her. I seem to like that in women."

He shook his head, as if forcing the thoughts from his mind.

"Is your brother still asleep?"

The girl just gave him a raised brow, "You do realize this is Nico we're talking about, right?"

"So we'll see him again in a few hours."

"Yep."

"And until then he's dead to the world."

"Uh-huh,"

"Perfect!" Her father clapped his hands. "I'll send some people out to get him."

"You can't just carry him yourself?" She questioned.

"But then I can't _gesture_." He pointedly did not whine.

She just stared up at him.

He stared back.

"...you're a terrible father."

"In my defense, I've had terrible role models."

Moments later the two walked inside the building. A glistening marble floor greeted them, with columns rising up from the ground and filling the voluminous room. It was big, empty, and imposing.

As if to add to the impression of it's size, there was only one lone receptionist at the dark wooden desk made of simple curving lines. In the floor were obsidian tiles of arcing, swirling, and swooping waves. All combined to give the image of a black sea in a white void.

"Hello, Mr. Hades." the attendant smiled. She had clean pale skin, dark brown eyes, dirty blonde hair, and wore a grey suit with a white shirt underneath. The picture of office attire.

But what really drew Bianca's eye was the black tattoo of a beast's fearsome head peeking out from her collar, winding around the back of her neck.

"Hello Wanda." Her father smiled back, walking up to the desk.

"This is my daughter, Bianca," He gestured to the girl, blushing under the attention, "And my son, Nico, is still in the car sleeping."

"I see." Wanda smiled, not even phased for a moment, "Well I'm glad to see your trip worked out for you. I'll have security bring him to your floor."

"Thanks Wanda," Hades smiled, "I guess now _I'll_ know what it's like to deal with the kids at home."

Wanda just laughed at the remark, a hidden interaction between the two that Bianca didn't fully understand yet.

Bianca couldn't help but be surprised by all the differences she was seeing _inside_. Sure, it had been over half a century, but things had changed so much in that time. In a way, her father was a rock, a stable point she could latch on to. Something familiar and comfortable.

Not that _he_ needed to know that.

Hades pushed off of the desk, walking up to a pair of chrome elevator doors set in the ebony wood walls of the building, a simple golden outline around it, broken only at the top to allow for the image of a solitary golden eye.

Bianca stared at it for a moment, _swearing_ that it stared back, before her father pulled her into the elevator.

"W-was that eye…?" She questioned.

"That's just Bob." He waved her off, looking at the panel of buttons on the side of the tiny room.

Then he pulled a key of black glass from his pocket, a silver wire acting as a skeleton inside it, tracing the shape of the whole piece. He pushed it into the chrome panel, the metal parting like water to let the key in.

With a twist and a _click_ , the elevator shuddered for a moment, the lights flashing red for an instant, before everything settled back to normal.

"Home." Hades commanded.

And suddenly the elevator plummeted.

* * *

"So what was that?"

"What was what?"

"Philip."

Philip glanced at the woman sitting in the passenger seat beside him, "What?"

"Those...things?" She added, "The ones you killed?"

"I'd hoped you'd have had a better idea about that." He muttered.

"Excuse me?" She arched an eyebrow.

"You didn't so much as twitch when they appeared. You're obviously either familiar with their type, or you've seen so many strange things in that vein that you've become numb to such oddities." He explained.

"And I'd assume you're in the latter category?"

"Correct."

"Would you like to expand on that?"

"No."

Athena huffed, realizing that she wasn't going to get much more at this angle. At least, not by being blunt.

Mostly, however, she was annoyed that he'd gotten one over on her. He was right, she'd been too careless, too arrogant. She assumed that he wouldn't notice her subtle tells. And now he suspected she wasn't simply a mild-mannered college professor.

Still, when in doubt, deflect.

"How did you even kill them, anyway?" She asked.

Philip spared her strange glance, "You were there, watching with rapt attention."

"Yes, but, I mean what did you use? Monsters have a historical precedent for being difficult to kill."

"In my experience, most things die when you shoot them."

 _You little shit!_

Athena strangled a roar of frustration. If she was honest with herself, it was probably why she liked Philip so much. There was no fun associating with someone who just fell over themselves to answer to your every whim.

Well, no fun if you did it too much.

The fact that he was so obtuse, so hard to get, yet at the same time polite and accommodating made him fall right in the sweet spot. Difficult enough to be an enticing challenge, a tantalizing puzzle, but open enough to not make her want to rip him limb from limb, or even simply leave.

But for all that she loved the game, she would be the first to admit it was frustrating attempting to deal with the brick wall that was Phillip Zavala.

So instead of screaming at him, instead of punching him, clawing his face, or cursing his family for generations, she stopped, and took a breath.

 _Calm down, Athena. Calm down. This is how you make mistakes._

"Okay," Athena muttered, "Fine, you don't know, that's fine."

In her attempts to regain her own composure she didn't notice Philip sending her a cautious look.

"So…" Athena began anew, switching to a new line of inquiry. "What are you going to do with the child?"

"Well, first we're taking her to my house-"

"Why your house and not some hospital?" Athena interjected.

Philip kept on without missing a beat, "Frankly, I don't trust them. Those things wore human skin, blending in. I've seen several others of their ilk around from time to time. I have little guarantee that the hospital would be a safe place for her. They could blend in with the staff, patients, or visitors, only to strike as soon as she is left alone."

"My house, however, is private property. If anyone's there, then they already don't belong. It's also a defensible location with my own personal armory. If they try to strike en mass I can cut them down with sufficient firepower from a place of security."

Athena blinked.

"You have an armory?"

"You don't?"

"...point."

Normally, she would have laughed at the prospect of a mere mortal holding back a group of any real monsters.

But that was before she saw a man take down three of the more dangerous variety using a knife and two handguns with not even a scratch to show for it.

"What do you know about the girl?' He asked, tearing Athena from her thoughts.

"What?" She questioned, her mind screeching to a halt.

"You recognized her. Or at the very least you reacted when she said her name." Philip supplied, "Obviously you know something about her."

 _How perceptive is this man?_ Athena all but exclaimed.

"I may have weapons and skills to face this threat, but Intel is one of the most valuable resources in any battle, and it is one area I am sorely lacking. Anything you could provide would be appreciated." He explained with that same stony expression, "As they say, 'knowing is half the battle'"

Athena shot him a look, "...G.I. Joe? Really?"

"I find it to be very entertaining propaganda and memetic insemination, instilling strong messages in the youth."

 _...How is it that **I'm**_ _the one that actually sounds like a Hades-damned human being,_ She frowned.

 _Still..._

She mulled it over in her head, considering what to explain and what she knew about him.

He had prowess to kill monsters. In fact, he could make such an act look easy, even trivial. His strength, speed, and reactions were all well above what she considered the average for a trained human soldier.

Then there was the fact he could see through the Mist, an incredibly rare gift. Combined with the gun that could kill a monster as easy as any man, and it was a worrying idea.

 _Even worse, he wasn't taking it seriously_ Athena frowned internally. She could tell. It was subtle, but she could see the little hints that he was holding back.

 _No, not holding back_ she realized, _what he did was something else._

 _He started at baseline human, and escalated slightly when it didn't work. By the end, he simply discarded with formalities and ended them with clinical precision._

 _But what does this mean?_

Nothing he did was technically inhuman. At least not blatantly so. His strength and speed were unusual, significantly so, but Athena had lived long enough to meet humans that seemed to be born with unnatural levels of skill, ability, or strength without having delved into the supernatural.

The gun was suspicious, but it did resemble a Mauser C96. A gun made in a time when human industry met magic and the supernatural. The idea that someone from the time managed to construct a gun to fight monsters wasn't unreasonable.

If the gun were that old, it would certainly explain the subtle level of reverence he held towards it.

In one way, it comforted Athena to think that the gun he used to kill them was special and unique.

In another, it scared her. Given all this time, was it really so impossible that the adaptive and industrious humans hadn't applied it to others?

That thought, the idea that humans had a reliable, easy to make and easy to use weapon that could actually harm their side of the divide scared Athena more than she knew, more than she let herself know.

So much so, she cut off that line of reasoning and threw it into the darkest depths of her mind.

 _Mortals armed with ancient guns_ She scoffed, _As if such a thing could ever threaten us._

"Carol!" Philip barked, ripping her from her mind once more.

"Hmm?" She answered with a smile

"The girl?" Philip questioned again.

"Ah...right."

Internally, Athena scowled.

 _You just couldn't keep it in your pants, could you Zeus?_

Sure, they'd dissolved the Pact that had made the girl's existence forbidden, but she doubted Hera would be so forgiving.

And technically speaking, Thalia was the only one that was of forbidden birth. The children of Hades were born before the pact and Poseidon hadn't actually courted his woman in bed yet.

It wouldn't surprise her if Hera tried to use such a technicality to have Thalia, and Thalia alone, executed.

In fact, her presence here proved it. She'd left her mother for unknown reasons, but if Athena had to guess, Hera drove her mad, leaving her home unsafe. After that, she likely nudged things just enough to have the monsters on the west coast catch her scent.

It probably would have worked, too, if not at that alley then likely on some other darker day.

 _Even if it didn't, the circumstances around this would have likely drove her into the arms of Artemis and her hare- Huntresses!_

 _Artemis and her huntresses._

 _That's what I meant._

Athena waited for a beat, on the lookout for a sign the goddess in question had noticed. Eventually, though, she relaxed.

 _Still, the question remains, what to do now? Would she be safe at camp? Would Philip even let her go?_ She considered

 _I doubt that Philip would accept me just saying, "Oh, I need to take her home" or something._

 _I suppose I could spin a story about her being my niece. Technically she's more or less my half-sister, but I sincerely doubt that would fly with him. Plus, such a close association feels unsightly._ Athena almost shivered. _Zeus, however, likely wouldn't accept me not telling him about her._

She frowned, _probably, anyway. It's entirely possible, knowing the man, that he's found another woman already and is working on giving the poor girl siblings._

 _But most importantly, what do I tell the man with the gun?_

"Well?"

Athena kneaded her forehead as her mind spun through her options, well aware of the fact she didn't have all the time in the world. Even with the divine cognition that came with being the Goddess of Wisdom, she was not the Master of Bullshit that Apollo was.

"She's...special," Athena admitted.

"Thalia? How?" He pressed.

"She is…" Athena pursed her lips, parsing through the litany of options and lies. "She has magic in her blood. Something monsters like the ones you killed hunger for. She's very powerful, and very rare."

None of that was a lie, but it was only a small part of the truth. He'd likely assume her to be a mage's child or something.

"Ah," Philip nodded, accepting it easily, "Like you."

Athena jerked in her chair, "Wait, what?"

Philp quirks a brow, "Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

 _You noticing should have been impossible,_ She thought with wide eyes, _Unless…_

Philip snorts, "You're subtle, but I've still noticed you occasionally conjuring things up, as if from thin air, or putting them away just as easily."

"I seem to remember you do something very similar." Athena glared.

"Cayde tells me of this wondrous technology know as pockets." Philip said with a straight face. "You don't usually seem to have many, however."

Athena pursed her lips, skeptical, but acknowledging he did have a point. He almost always wore some form of attire that came with no less than 6 pockets. It's not like he ever pulled something out that couldn't have been reasonably held covertly with proper placement and preparation.

It was suspicious, but not blatantly impossible.

"Then there's that humming in my mind when you glare at me." He offered.

Athena blinked, "You've noticed that?"

"It's very annoying." He grumbled.

"And you didn't say anything because?"

"I couldn't be sure it was you. It's not as if assuming that the woman glaring at me is the cause for the humming in my mind is logical." He shrugged.

"And it is now?"

"You just admitted it."

Athena scowled at the man, angry at him getting one over her, again. It was made all the worse by the fact that he didn't even seem to consider it a victory. There was no pride, no joy, at his win. He simply acted as if it was a preordained fact of reality.

 _Fuck you too, Philip_

"Anyways, I figured you had something to do with the girl. You recognized her, you have something strange about you, and everything surrounding the girl was strange as well."

"It could have been a coincidence."

"Could have. But I have a feeling it wasn't."

Athena huffed. _Still…_

 _At least he gave me an opening_

"I'm her aunt."

"And you didn't think to open with that?"

"I didn't think you would have believed me," Athena admitted, "I thought you would have seen it as all too convenient. I was going to wait until Thalia could tell you herself."

 _Though it is certainly more believable than divine half-sister._

"Hmm," Philip hummed noncommittally.

"I'm surprised you aren't more worried about the humming in your mind, to be honest," She confessed.

"I've had worse," He shrugged it off.

Athena blinked.

" _Worse?!"_

* * *

" _Thalia"_

At her name, the girl jerked up, only to find herself in a strange location.

All around her, white marble, glittering gold, and obsidian black.

It resembled the inside of some kind of ancient temple. The interior was composed of smooth, clean, and sharp geometric lines. It was aesthetically pleasing, if not entirely comforting.

" **Thalia"** the voice repeated, now booming in intensity.

The girl spun around and found herself nearly blinded by the brilliance of the figure before her. The light burned just long enough to sear it's impression in her mind before fading down to a manageable intensity.

Blinking back the spots in her vision, Thalia looked ahead to see a woman wear regal white and gold robes, with stormy grey eyes and ebony black hair.

Behind the woman was a massive stature, vaguely resembling the woman but in Grecian armor and with spear and shield in hand. At the base of it was a massive burning pit, but rather than seem intimidating, it held more of a warm air. Like a comforting fireplace keeping the cold out.

"Uh…" The girl inarticulately said.

 _I'm dreaming_ she thought, _I have to be_

" **Well,"** The woman smirked, **"You aren't wrong"**

" **Do you know who you are?"**

"I...uh...what?" The young girl stumbled, completely taken off guard.

The woman chuckled, a sound that seemed to shake the very temple around them. **"You are Thalia Grace, are you not?"**

"...yes?" The girl responds

" **Also known as the daughter of Zeus."** She smiled.

The girl swallows. An unsettling feeling of certain dread crawling down her back like a cold stream of water in her spine.

"A-and you are?' she stutters.

The woman just grins. A grin that, despite its levity and brightness, caries far too many teeth. **"I, child, am Athena."**

" **But...you shall call me Aunt Carol."**

* * *

" _...you can't just keep her here…"_

" _...temporary place to hunker down…"_

" _...need an actual plan…"_

" _...Why we're here in the first place…"_

Thalia slowly began to rouse to wakefulness. The remnants of the dream still fresh in her mind.

" _...you realize she's awake now?"_

She groaned, massaging the back of her aching head as her mind swam through the sea of memories, trying to track where she was.

" _...Thalia?"_

Her head jerked up at the sound of her name, making her come face to face with a woman looking back at her with long brown trusses and all too familiar grey eyes. Her lips pursed with concern, brows furrowed as she bent down over her.

But it was when she saw that golden glint in her eye that Thalia remembered.

"...A-Aunt Carol?"

The woman smiled, that same golden glint glistening with approval. The smile held a subtle edge, one of hidden gleeful approval, and of powerful intent.

Thalia swallowed nervously, _Not a dream, then._

"Yes, dear! It's your Aunt Carol." For a moment, the woman's eyes glanced back towards at the large black man standing behind her.

A man who sparked a memory in her mind.

"You!" She lurched up.

The man just arched a brow in silent confusion.

"Y-you're the one who...who…" Thalia trailed off, her mind spinning back to panic and terror of running for her life earlier today. Of being hunted like an animal for the past week. Of nearly being caught. Of nearly being-

"Thalia?" Carol interrupted in a concerned tone, "Dear?"

"I-I'm okay." She stuttered, straining to bury the fear beneath her.

But even her best effort left her a trembling child before giants.

"Are you okay?" The man said in a deep rumbling voice.

"Y-yeah…" Thalia muttered, her own fire suppressed by the sheer presence of the man.

 _But...it's not a bad one. It's not like a pressure trying to snuff me out. It's not like…_ Thalia bit her lip, _It's not like my father's._

"What happened to your mother, dear?" Carol asked, the impression of genuine care and worry playing across her face.

But with every word, Thalia could see that glimmer of smugness, of _victory_ in her eyes.

And it scared her. She was leagues out of her depth, and she only knew enough to know that she didn't have a prayer of a chance of playing the game. All she could do was stick to the nearest player and pray for protection.

"S-she finally snapped." Thalia muttered, the dark memory of the day everything came to a head. "After Jason disappeared, she was never the same, and then one day she just...she just snapped."

Carol's warm hand rested on her own, but there was a coldness to it. Despite the heat of her hand, it's meaningfulness was robbed by the fact that Thalia knew it was just orchestrated, that it was just Athena playing a role to a perfect T.

But...the worst part?

The worst part was how much she let herself believe for a moment that it was real.

The worst part was how much Thalia needed another human's presence.

The worst part was the fact that Thalia knew it was all a lie, that it was all an act, just a fabrication and manipulation.

But it didn't matter.

"Take your time, dear." Carol whispered.

Thalia knew it was a trick, but it didn't matter. It didn't matter because it was still _exactly_ what she needed right now. It was _exactly_ the words she needed to hear, the touch she needed to feel. And despite it all, Thalia couldn't help but ever so slightly give in.

Just an inch, just a sliver.

But it was more than Athena needed.

"O-ne day she just came at me." Thalia mumbled, trying to hold back the tears at her eyes. "She just...she just picked up a knife and decided I needed to die."

"S-she said I w-was a mistake. T-that I should have been the one they took, n-not J-Jason." Tears crawled down her cheeks, "A-and I ran and ran, b-but everywhere I-I turned t-there where these m-monsters a-a-and..."

Thalia trailed off as her throat choked up.

A soft hand met her shoulder, pulling her into a warm and comforting hug. Thalia tried to resist it, she tried not to feel it, but she couldn't help but feel safe.

And she hated herself for it.

"You're safe now." Carol's voice whispered in her ear.

" **For I have plans for you, dear."** Athena's voice whispered in her head.

"She's right," The man's voice rumbled as he looked out the window, a gun held firmly in his hands. "You're safe here."

"B-but what if they come?!" Thalia cringed, the memories of the twisted nightmares chasing after her, the feeling of knowing that any stranger could twist into a horrid monster at any moment.

"Then they'll die." He stated simply, as if it was a fact of reality, much like rain falling from the clouds or the sun rising each day.

But it still brought a measure of comfort to her tired soul.

"However…" he began, turning back to them. "I suggest the two of you stay here for the next...two days."

Carol arched a brow skeptically, "Two days? Really?"

He nodded, "If they're truly simple beasts, they'll charge the house, and die."

"But," He stepped forward, pulling a wooden chair from the table and plopping down before her. "If they're smart…"

He folded his hands between his legs, leaning forward ever so slightly towards the girl, "If they have even a trace of decent tactics, they'll wait until you leave, until you've left the absolute safety of this house."

"H-how is that a g-good thing?"

"Because," He leaned back, "They'll have to monitor the house closely to know when you leave. Over two days it wouldn't be too difficult to pick up on anyone stalking the house. If you stayed longer, it'd be even easier."

"At that point," He said, stretching back to pull a bottle of some kind of red wine off the table, "I'd either just kill them on the spot..."

He paused, taking a sip of wine straight from the bottle.

"..Or I'd have a friend track them down to their base and kill them all there."

Something about the casual way that the man said it, all while drinking the blood-colored beverage both disturbed and enthralled Thalia. It was the presence he had, the subtle charisma in his movements. Her father was forceful, aggressive, and arrogant.

Zeus demanded your attention. This man commanded your respect.

"There is, however, the possibility that they're too dim to even know you're here. In which case, there's little to no problem."

"How likely is that?" Carol asked.

"You'd know better than me." The man gave her a pointed look.

"Oh, but Philip, I'm but a simple professor. I'm sure I have no idea what you mean." Carol feigned ignorance with a grin.

Philip just gave her a strange look, before letting out a snort.

"Either way…" He eventually said, "I'd know better the longer you stayed here. Two days is a minimum. Preferably, I'd go with a week."

"My my, staying a week at a 'friend's' house. What _will_ my colleges say?" Carol teased.

"Safety first," Philip responded with a face chiseled from stone.

Carol actually stopped, her eyes glazing over for a moment at the comment.

"I...what?"

Thalia thought it was an odd, but reasonable worry. Safety was always important, right?

"What's wrong with saftey first?" Thalia asked with all the innocence of a 9-year-old girl, looking at her 'Aunt' with perplexed eyes.

"Er, I, nothing, nothing." Carol replied, trying to fight down her flush.

Philip's face didn't so much as twitch, but his eyes danced with a silent laughter.

But in the depths of Athena's mind, she vowed revenge.

* * *

 _A/n:_

 _First off, I'd like to thank Trav for Beta-ing this._

 _Second, I'd like to curse Trav for Beta-ing this._

 _Was supposed to come out on Halloween, but no, has to come out on the goddamn 4th_

 _Ugh_

 _Anyways, this chapter._

 _I'm finally back so you can be happy about that. I was sorely tempted to just wait until the end of the year to update, just because I said I'd update in a year, but the muse, and Destiny 2, hit me hard enough to get back into it._

 _Speaking of, I would look back at the previous chapter. I made a revision to the fight scene. Namely, Zavala uses the **Strum** in a more mundane appearance to kill all the monsters. _

_The **Strum** is basically what I wanted him to use in the first place, a semi-auto handgun that hits like a handcannon, and lo and behold, D2 delivers. _

_In any case, not much happens in this chapter._

 _I actually wanted to go a bit further with Hades and Bianca, because not much happened, but it wasn't really coming to me despite having it all mapped out in my head, so I decided to just post the chapter now, rather than wait for a week for my muse to come back._

 _However, all in all, I'm going to admit I'm taking some liberties with numerous people in the PJO sphere. Hades and Persephone are going to have my own interpretation because A: I can't be bothered to remember canon's, and B: I saw a collection of short comics about it that tickled my fancy._

 _Athena's going to be a bit more of a schemer. Not necessarily to rule the world, but certainly for her own goals. Case in point, Thalia as seen in this chapter._

 _Speaking of Thalia, Zeus. He's going to be a bit more of an asshole._

 _Probably._

 _I mean, he was already the king of assholes, I'm not sure I can get worse than classic Zeus. Either way, I'm not really going for Flanderization hate-boner Zeus, more so "I need him to fill the role of X, and he does so splendidly"._

 _So yeah._

 _Also, I feel like Zavala would totally understand all kinds of innuendo. He might not use it himself, but considering he seems to be a very "in the trenches" kind of guy, I'm pretty sure he's heard the worst of the worst. This is kiddy pool shit, at the moment. Keeping a straight face at implied condoms isn't even a challenge to him._

 _Anyways, I'm going to try and get the next chapter up sometime this month. Maybe. I'm also tossing the old chapter playlist out the window, I'll post a chapter when I feel I have a sufficient chapter, not when I've ticked every last box so I can cram everything into 16 chapters._

 _That's good news for you, means more updates._

 _It also means that the very much major turning point should be happening...sometime in the next...3 chapters? I'm guessing that's how long it'll take me to wrap things up here._

 _Also, if anyone's curious, I've decided Percy's 99% likely to be a boy. For two reasons, 1: There is almost no real reason to turn him into a girl other than "LOL Boobs", which isn't exactly cutting the mustard. 2: I have enough strong female characters showing up as is. I'm not exactly sure what the female equivalent of a sausage fest is, but I'm betting it's called a taco party. Maybe an estrogen fest._

 _I like taco party more._

 _Anyway, that's enough out of me. I'm tired, so I'm heading the fuck to sleep._

 _As a final note, I've been considering 1, well, 2 other short little Destiny crossovers involving other worlds and the Iron Lords. The one I've really thought about is a Familiar Of Zero one where she summons Lord Felwinter moments before his death. Lord Felwinter, of course, being the badass Exo Warlock and master Voidwalker who either shotgun'd or magic slapped people in the face so hard they stopped existing._

 _Good ol' Lord Felwinter._


	10. Chapter 10: Whoops

Vanguard Chapter 10

 _A/n: Whoops_

* * *

"So...what do you want with me?"

Athena grinned from her lounging position on the opposite couch. She looked like a queen sitting in the lap of luxury before her servants.

Thalia supposed that wasn't too far from the truth.

"Did you not hear the offer I gave you? Or were you too enthralled by the chance for family and safety that you ignored all else?"

Thalia pouted, disliking Athena's condescending tone.

"You made it complicated."

Athena chuckled, "Complicated? My dear, it's all quite simple."

As she spoke, she pulled an apple from the fruit bowl on the coffee table between them.

"I have need of able bodied, potent, and resourceful individuals." She began, pulling a golden knife from seemingly nowhere.

"Exceptional individuals who are willing to aid me in my goals." She continued.

As she spoke, Athena's iron eyes danced with mirth. Her knife peeling the apple away.

"And you, my dear, are in quite the precarious position. You need allies. People you can trust. The more powerful the better."

"A-and why should I trust you?" Thalia pointed out.

"Well, when a goddess of my renown gives her word, I keep it." . With a shrug, she slipped a sliver of apple between her ruby red lips. "We even swore on the river Styx. 'Tis an unbreakable bond, unless the two of us decided to dissolve it together."

"So...y-you'll protect me from the monsters, and in return I'll...be your spy?" Thalia guessed.

Athena let out a soft snort, "Hardly. I don't expect you to be a spy. Not exactly."

"But you said you wanted me to be a secret agent." Thalia pouted.

"Not secret." Athena stopped her with her hand outstretched, knife held in a lose grip pointed straight between the girl's eyes. "At least, not specifically."

And with those words, she pulled the hand back. Instead having the knife weave intricate patterns through the air to accentuate her words. "To be frank, Zeus likely fathered you and your brother in a fit of lust for your mother. If not that, then he had plans to use your power for some other ends."

Athena tilted her head to the side lazily, "On the other hand, I somewhat doubt that my dearest creator has the refined cunning needed for such a thing. He's usually far more…"

"Direct," She punctuated by stabbing apple with the knife.

"Which…" She twirled the offending fruit with the knife, spinning it between her fingers with the greatest of ease. "Isn't always a bad thing. But, unfortunately, he can create as many problems as he solves."

"You, in particular," Athena says, pointing the apple at Thalia.

"M-me?" the girl stutters, taken off guard.

"Oh yes," Athena smiled, "You see, new forces have come into play. Entities that force our hand. As such, we had to rescind the Pact that once restricted our power in the interest of preserving the Balance. One aspect essentially gave Zeus a blank check to sire all the children he wants in the hope they are able to protect the world."

"Hera, as you can imagine, was most displeased with this."

"As such, she lashed out at you and your brother. Sick twisted bastard half-breeds as far as her elitist mind is concerned. She does not care for practicality or the reality we are faced with, only the purity and elitism she holds herself and all others by."

"So naturally, she wants you dead."

Thalia gulped. Very real fear pooling into her gut at the goddess's words.

"Now," Athena grinned, "I happen to believe that you have a fair chance at surviving. If not you, at least some of the demigods she holds a grudge against would."

"Either way, her actions make both waste and enemies. Should you die, we lose someone with incredible power and potential. Someone who could be invaluable, someone who could become a legend."

Thalia blushed at the praise, "Y-you really think I could?"

"But of course," Athena smiled, gesturing towards herself with the apple still impaled on the end of the knife, "Look at me, am I not kin of your kin? What of Hercules? The blood of Zeus is an assurance of great things, my dear. Of this, I have no doubt."

"O-okay," Thalia dipped her head.

"But, before I came, what was your opinion of your father? Of the gods in general?"

"Uh...low?" Thalia said carefully, not wanting to antagonize her.

Athena still chuckled good-naturedly. "No need to curtail your words. We abandoned you, Hera tries to kill you, and I've little doubt that Zeus is hunting for his next piece of meat to impregnate."

Athena's eyes slipped open, her iron eyes sliding a smoldering gaze simmering with the heat of a huntress over to the young girl who sat before her.

"You felt hate, my dear. Plain and simple."

A shiver went down Thalia's spine at Athena's look. The fire in the gaze, the underlying power barely hidden behind the thinnest of veils. Like a hurricane hidden by the film of a soap bubble.

Thalia felt like prey, like an ant before the sun, like someone who couldn't even begin to comprehend the power of the being before them.

But most of all, Thalia felt like a mouse before a cat. A cat that had her cornered and captured. A cat that was merely playing with her food. The conclusion was already decided. There was no chance, not anymore. Athena had her exactly where she wanted her. All Thalia could do was go along with the ride.

"S-so…?"

Athena laughed, actually laughed. Her head tipped back and a booming, echoing, sound like a chorus of horns rang out. "Oh, you don't understand, do you? Oh, you are quite naive, my dear."

"You, or others like you, would have had this hate fester inside you. The longer we abandoned you, the longer it would have festered. The longer you survived, the stronger it would have grown. And with that strength, you would have sought to have your revenge, to disrupt the Balance."

"B-but you're gods, right?" Thalia questioned, "W-what could we do to you?"

"Oh, you'd be surprised." Athena frowned ever so slightly, "but, either way, you are correct. An individual demigod is no real threat to us."

"But...with enough of them? With the right support in the right places? If they leveraged their power correctly? Well...with that, they could do quite a lot of damage."

The two were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. They glanced at the clock, noticing that the day had nearly turned over.

"I should probably be in bed." Thalia yawned.

Athena just shrugged.

The sound of Philip's boot steps pulled them from the last moments of their conversation. Athena gave Thalia a sharp look, telling her it wasn't over.

But rather than dwell on it, they turned towards the entrance of the dining room, waiting on the host of the house.

"Philip!" Athena called out, slipping into the persona known as Carol.

Not a moment later, the man passed through the archway, clad in a dripping wet black coat as he stepped into the dining room opposite them.

"H-hey." Thalia greeted him.

"Greetings," He managed to respond with a cordial grunt.

He drops a couple large brown bags and plates with utensils onto the wooden table with a clatter before he began to unbutton his jacket.

"S-so what t-took you so long?" Thalia wondered, drumming her fingers against the chair.

"You did leave several hours ago to get dinner." Athena chimed in.

Philip nods in agreement with a hum. He slips out of his jacket, draping it against the back of one of the chairs, revealing his damp white shirt. He gets to work setting up the plates with dinner.

"What'd you get?" Thalai chirped curiously.

"Stromboli from an Italian restaurant I'm fond of." He answers, setting down the last steaming hot roll.

"Now," He begins, turning around, "I apologize for being late. I was busy cleaning u-"

He was cut off by the sound of Thalia shrieking.

Philip visibly recoiled at the reaction, rocking back on his heels slightly at the sheer intensity of the shrill sound.

Athena, however, was too busy staring at the man, jaw agape and eyes wide.

It was, at that moment, that he realized that the front of his shirt was stained a bright crimson, his own form drenched in blood.

"...Damn."

Philip scowled at the bloody mess his clothes had become. He assumed that he missed it due to all the rain making already quite wet. A few liters of blood hardly added to it.

"A-a-are y-y-you?-I-i-it's s-s-so m-m-much…" Thalia stammered, her mind going into shock from the ocean of red.

Philip, in the meantime, put the plates back on the table.

"What the hell happened, Philip?" Athena inquire, genuine concern playing plain across her face.

Philip sighed angrily, "Don't worry," He began, going up the steps on the left side of the living room towards his room upstairs. As he left the stage, he called down to give them one final cold comfort.

"It's not mine."

* * *

"And _this_ is mine."

"... _really?_ "

"Don't ruin my fun, Zavala."

Zavala just sighed, realizing it's pointless to argue or even point out issues in logic. Not so much because he wouldn't win, but more so because the fight was worth it. Not over something so trivial.

"Ikora," He began, "I will barely tolerate, let alone understand, this fixation you and Cayde have over spoils of war."

"But please explain to me how a _heart_ falls under that category."

"Oh Zavala," She sighed in that matronizing tone, "You are missing a very key part of this heart."

She grinned savagely, peaking at him from the corner of her eye as she held the bloody organ in her outstretch grip.

"It's still _beating_."

Zavala looked at the bloody fist-sized object, pulsating in her hand, and back to the tan woman holding it.

Then he just sighed.

"Are you going to collect _all_ of them?"

It was a pertinent question, given the fact that they were in a warehouse surrounded by the cooling corpses of dozens of werewolves.

Ikora considered the question for a moment.

"Yes," She nodded.

"Why?"

"Why not?"

Zavala just groaned as he massaged the growing headache in his skull. .

Just as promised, the two of them had tracked down any sign of paranormal beings tracking Thalia's location. However, they had not expected to find such obvious signs so quickly.

No less than 3 pairs of werewolves were near Zavala's house. Each of them acting in a casual manner that would allow them to blend in almost seamlessly.

This well sculpted camouflage was ruined, of course, by the fact they all appeared as large furry humans to the Guardians.

It wasn't quite as simple as that, however.

"Do you have idea why they appeared so...oddly?" Zavala inquired. "They all appeared to be human, and yet...not."

"Not really," Ikora hummed, tearing out another still-beating heart and throwing it in her personal transmat storage with a shimmer or digital light. "I have some theories however,."

"I presume it's because this 'Veil' they spoke of. Judging by how they talked about it, it's supposed to confound mundane senses and minds." She began, "Being Guardians, the Light shielded us from it. Furthermore, our more...metaphysical senses, such as being able to detect and read souls, were able to translate to beings such as them in a different way."

"The reason this matters is because I believe that this 'Veil' is not always a mere illusion. In the werewolves case, it appears they actually have a physical transformation from human to bipedal-wolf. As a result of our soul-sense or what have you, as well as our Light Shielding us, our minds sought to process all the information given to it by our senses in a way that made sense."

"Put simply, our senses detected an individual that was both a man, and a wolf. Our mind just translated that raw information into a format we could understand."

"Right," Zavala nodded, "That explains why many of them had a kind of ghostly wolf following them, or their werewolf form hovering over them like a shadow."

"But that doesn't explain the people with wolven fur or ears. Or why there were differences at all."

Ikora shrugged, "Best guess? Individual differences in how they perceived their wolven selves. Those with ghostly wolves had more of a dissociation between their human and wolf halves, while those of the more furry variety saw the two as one in the same."

"It'll be interesting to see why."

"I'm guessing this has something to do with the still-beating hearts?"

"Indeed," Ikora smiled, an old one that Zavala and long learned not to question. "These organs seem nearly indestructible, and are filled with some kind of magic. While we've effectively killed them, their hearts still beat."

"From a cursory overview," She continued, "It's not even really beating."

Zavala opened his mouth to protest the obvious flaw in her logic, but stopped himself.

"...Is it like with their wolven forms?"

"That's my guess," She grinned, looking over the pulsing heart with eager eyes. "Physically? It's still as a rock. But on a spiritual level? Life still trickles through it."

"Maybe they're like the Hive?" Zavala ventured, "They never die. Not truly. Kill them and they just get recycled to their own dimension, or back into their race."

"They did remind me of more intelligent Thralls." Ikora considered, "Still, I thank you for alerting me to this fascinating new research opportunity."

"I figured you'd be interested in it, and many hands make for light work." Zavala nodded, "Your aid has made the clearing of this...infestation...much easier."

"And the others?" Ikora inquired, transmatting the last heart away, "You mentioned the presence of some snake-women."

"From what we could see, they're more vermin than commanders." He answered, "The Wolves were the ones with any real strategic acumen. Without their lead, the others will just attack like rats."

"So, for now you just have to deal with the mindless idiots giving you a frontal attack." Ikora continued his chain of reasoning, "As opposed to the Wolves, who might have actually come up with a halfway decent plan. These beasts you just have to kill."

"Exactly." Zavala nodded.

"So we'll deal with the others tomorrow?"

"Agreed."

"Well, onto a different topic of research."

"Oh?" He arched a brow.

Ikora could actually see it because the two hadn't thought it necessary to wear their full sets of armor. It turned out, any armor at all was a stretch. They could have slaughtered them all naked and it wouldn't have made a difference.

The Wolves, much like the other beasts the two had encountered, hadn't seemed to have kept up with the times, beyond merely keeping up appearances. They didn't take guns seriously, and had no real weapons of their own beyond claws.

But man had conquered the world for a reason, and their mastery of tools and strategies easily triumphed over any perceived physical advantage a beast had over them.

"Thalia."

At the word, Zavala immediately frowned, "Ikora, I'm not letting you use a child as a test subject."

"She isn't a test subject, Zavala." Ikora scoffed, "I have no control group."

"She's a _research_ subject."

"Ikora," Zavala warned.

"It'll be harmless, I won't touch a hair on her head." she paused for a moment, "Maybe five."

"Physically, I'm sure she'll be fine." He scowled, " _mentally_? We both know the psyche is a fragile thing."

"I could wipe her memory."

"And her soul?"

Now it was Ikora's turn to frown.

"We both know that scars on the mind can scar the soul. Even the deepest memory wipe can't change that." He argued.

She bit her lip, "Touche."

Finally, she conceded his point with a sigh, "Very well, Zavala. She can have this 'normal life', you desire. But if this comes back to bite us…"

"As much as I would like her to have this so called 'normal life', it won't happen." Zavala sighed, "She has power. And power attracts attention."

"But just because she will not have it easy does not mean we have a blank check to make it hard." He warned with a hard tone.

"And I'm sure Cayde would agree with you on that." She sighed.

"Where is he, anyways?" He inquired.

"Looking for Osiris."

For a moment, Zavala's mind stumbled.

"I...what?"

"His apprentice, the Croft girl? Something odd happened to her." Ikora began to explain, "Now, I'm looking into it, but there's not much I can do beyond scan her and process the results. Cayde wasn't exactly fond of the idea of a vivisection."

"I wonder why."

"Shush." She chided him, "In any case, he decided to search for Osiris since he's supposed to be the Lord of the Underworld and Croft might have become undead."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"It's a long story" She waved it off.

"Does this...Osiris have to do with the one we know?"

"I don't know." Ikora shrugged, "I don't even know if Osiris is real here."

"But, well, considering the other signs we saw, we figured some mythological figures perceived as gods might have existed in one form of truth or another. At the very least having some basis in truth."

"Great," Zavala scowled. "Temperamental, abusive, judgemental, and arrogant gods. Just what we need to unite the world."

Ikora opened her mouth, but stopped as a flash of inspiration burst across her eyes.

"Actually…"

"What are you thinking?"

"Not sure…" She trailed off. "Not yet, anyways."

"But I have an idea…"

* * *

 _A/n:_

 _Not dead._

 _Sorry about that._

 _Destiny 2 was slowly killing all my interest in Destiny. Warmind especially. I'm not getting Forsaken anytime soon because even if it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, I'm not paying **another** 70 or so dollar to get that and the fancy seasonal dlc coming out this year when I know that I can just get that all rolled into one package next year with Destiny's next super fancy Legendary Collection thing that has all the DLC everyone else paid upwards of $150 for just $60. _

_Especially given that the friend I'd be playing it the most with is currently on deployment in Afghanistan._

 _So I can wait._

 _However, I'm still a fan of the game, just not so much the people making it, which is why I'm updating Vanguard at all._

 _Which, fun fact, should have happened a while ago. I was going to try and write up a chapter to post today, but I remembered I had a part of a chapter already written. Went looking for it, turned out it was this thing. This is like 2-3K of words right here. That's not really where I originally wanted to end it, but..._

 _Well, that's good enough for today._

 _Now, I have no idea when I'm going to update this story next._

 _None._

 _Current plan? Update when I get a flash of inspiration. Whenever that'll be. I mean, I have an idea for what I can and want to do for the next, like, 6 or so chapters. I just need the motivation to actually write._

 _A lot easier said than done._

 _If anything, the new Tomb Raider game'll probably give me the jumpstart to do some of that._

 _But, in other news, remember that Destiny x FoZ fic I promised way back when? I'm posting chap 1 of that right about now-ish. It's very very short for the same reasons this is short._

 _Check it out if you want._

 _I'll see you...at some point._

 _Probably._


End file.
